


When the Waters Start to Cross

by missroserose



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family Dynamics, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Rating May Change, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking, Spiders, monster hunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missroserose/pseuds/missroserose
Summary: Hawkins, Indiana.  Winter 1984.Billy Hargrove hates this place—and he's determined to stay on top of the heap.  Easy enough, except for a particular boy he can't quite leave alone...and now the town's increasingly creepy goings-on are intruding on his life.Steve Harrington drifts through life—and it's coming down on him in a big way.  Facing down graduation and haunted by his recent brush with the supernatural, Steve's struggles aren't helped by a particular asshole who keeps taunting him.Two boys, restless with secrets, facing down uncertain futures.  One town, reeling from a recent scandal, harboring deadlier perils.  Fear and desire and anger and need, simmering behind the locked doors of suburbia.And in the midst of it all, they keep finding each other...





	1. As long as you're still burning bright

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to [suitofarmour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitofarmour/pseuds/suitofarmour), [xJuniperx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xJuniperx/pseuds/xJuniperx), [blahblahblahcollapse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blahblahblahcollapse), and [dead-night-harringrove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliriousLycan/pseuds/dead-night-harringrove) for your invaluable help with beta reading. Your suggestions and feedback have made this ten times better.

Fall is over in Hawkins, Indiana. Billy can feel it in the wind, the gusts sending fingers of ice beneath his open shirt, the chill of the Camaro’s hood palpable through the seat of his jeans. There’s no snow, not yet; instead the wind picks up dead leaves long stripped of their autumnal color, swirling them around in small tornadoes. The bare branches rattle above, casting shadows from the dying moon; somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots.

Billy rolls his eyes at the sheer pageantry of it all before flicking the butt of his cigarette off to the side. Like the woods in Indiana are going to spook a city boy from the coast, no matter how thick they lay it on. He’s seen scarier movies at the cineplex.

Besides. Billy knows for a fact that the most terrifying shit in life doesn’t come from _out here_.

There’s still a good hour or so before he can go home, so he lies back against the windshield, and looks up at the stars through the branches. He’d never admit it, but starscapes are the one thing Rural Bumfuck Nowhere has over southern California. He heard a story once, from a dude at a party who had a friend who knew someone that’d worked in emergency services, that during the massive blackout in New York in the 70s people were calling 911 about a weird silvery light in the sky. They were convinced it was aliens or a Russian plot…and it was just the Milky Way, which they’d never seen before. He’d laughed it off, assuming the dude was wasted and making shit up, but looking up at the night sky here in the land of no streetlights, he starts to wonder if there was some truth to the story. The silver glow is eerie, celestial.

His attention becomes abruptly earthbound again when he hears the crack of a breaking twig nearby. He rises up on his elbows, feels his shoulders stiffening—Neil’s never followed him out before—

He laughs aloud and sits up fully when the figure steps into the clearing; he’d recognize the silhouette of that ridiculous hair anywhere. The tightness in his back eases, some, is replaced by a different sort of tension, deeper and more pleasant; lazy, and yet somehow coiled, ready to spring. “Christ, Harrington, what’re you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Harrington turns toward him, still mostly in shadow. There’s a pause as the other boy takes him in. “I could ask you the same thing. Is there even a road out here?”

“Shit, anywhere can be a road if you drive fast enough.” His fingers are suddenly itching for another cigarette, something to hold, to gesture with. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

A pause, and then a quiet chuckle from the other boy; he steps forward into the wan light, something swinging from one hand. The glint of teeth bared in a grin, made all the more ghastly by the shadow of faded bruises along his cheeks, his jaw. “Monster hunting.”

Billy takes a moment before responding, sizes the other boy up, notes the shadow of the bat that dangles by Steve’s leg—a bat he remembers all too well from their last encounter outside of school. It hasn’t even been two weeks, and the thought of that helplessness, that inability to move as the bat came down between his legs, still makes his blood boil, makes heat curl tight in his gut. “Sticks and stones, King Steve,” he says, his tone darkening.

Steve takes a step closer, the bat fully visible now. Billy avoids looking at it. Pastes his eyes to Steve’s face, instead. These past two weeks, Steve’s mostly ignored him. Avoided his eyes in the hallways, avoided even looking at him at practice. But tonight Steve meets Billy’s gaze, tilting his face slightly as if daring him to look, to admire the aftermath of his handiwork. The swelling is long gone, but there’s a dark mark at his hairline, the gash not quite healed yet… 

His expression, though. The strange sublimated tension that’s been showing more and more often on Steve’s face. Insistent movement buried under frigid calm, a turbulent stream held captive beneath thick ice. “It’s not always all about you, Hargrove.”

Billy can feel something tightening in his gut; not fear, not exactly, but a cousin. He pulls another cigarette out of his jacket pocket, lights it up, all without taking his eyes off of Harrington, counting on the momentary glow of the lighter to give his features an infernal cast. “Of course it is,” he responds, leaning forward, snake-smile curving his lips upward. “I’m the only thing out here in these woods worth the time.” 

Steve chuckles a little at that, the tension in his face easing a fraction. “Sure, Hargrove. Whatever you say.” He rests the bat on the ground, fingers twiddling with the ridge on its handle as he assesses the scene. “So what _are_ you doing out here? Can’t sleep?”

Billy slides forward on the hood of the car, places the heel of one boot on the bumper. He inhales on the cigarette, eyeing Steve—the shadows under his eyes, the too-bright light behind them. Blows the smoke out in a long stream. “Guess we have that in common.”

“What tipped you off?”

“Aside from the fact that you’re out here at this hour? The way you dozed off in English class yesterday was a giveaway.”

Steve’s mouth curls upward at one corner. “I’m surprised more people don’t. Those desks are awfully comfortable.”

Billy grins, takes another drag on his cigarette. “F. Scott Fitzgerald puts you straight to sleep, huh?”

Steve shrugs. “Some people count sheep.”

“And some people hunt monsters in the woods.” Billy laughs, feeling he’s scored a point, somehow.

But Steve’s expression is perfectly serious. “Somebody’s got to keep the sheep safe.”

Billy tilts his head a little, eyeing the curve of Steve’s hair as it casts his face into partial shadow, almost covering one eye. “That why you’re always herding those kids around? You do look a little like a sheepdog.”

Steve, to his surprise, laughs—and in that laugh, Billy spies a flicker of the energy so often missing from the other boy’s demeanor. “Well, I’m apparently shitty royalty and a shittier boyfriend. Guess I’ve got to be good at something. Babysitting. Monster hunting.” 

Billy’s lips part, teeth sharp in the moonlight. “Are you teaching them everything you know?”

“Really, they’re teaching me.” Maybe it’s just the moonlight, but there’s a look in Steve’s eye that Billy can’t quite place, that speaks to him. Hums along the base of his spine, vibrates along the coiled tension deep in his belly. “It takes guts, facing down a monster.”

“Guts, and fire.” Billy leans forward. “That fire in you is something else, when you let it out.”

To his surprise, Steve goes still. Cold. Something in his face closes off. “You don’t know me, Hargrove.”

“Feel like I know you a bit better than I did a couple weeks ago.”

“You beat my face in. That’s not the same as getting to know someone.”

“Says you.” In one fluid motion, Billy’s up and off the hood of the car, advancing on Steve, though he doesn’t miss the way Steve’s fingers tighten on the ridge of the bat. “You’re not that big a puzzle, King Steve. You miss being school royalty.” He takes another step closer. “You miss having your prissy little princess on your arm, though God knows why.”

“You’re an observant douchebag, aren’t you?” Steve hasn’t raised the bat, but he’s not backing down, either. Just standing his ground, steady, inevitable. Like a tree. Or an iceberg.

Billy steps closer again, until they’re barely a foot apart. “Everyone’s waiting, Harrington. The only thing people like more than a fall from grace is the return of the underdog.” He licks his lips, intentional, lewd. “When’s it going to happen? When are you going to be done playing bi—”

Almost too quickly to process, Steve’s eyes move from Billy’s lips to the forest behind him. A fraction of a second later, he’s surged forward, pressing Billy up against a nearby tree, his free hand up against Billy’s mouth. Billy is so surprised he doesn’t even respond, only stiffens beneath Steve’s grip.

“Be. Quiet.” Steve is barely whispering, eyes deadly serious, their bodies tense against each other. Billy’s eyes widen, and he can feel a flush of heat traveling up his spine. He’s weighing whether to struggle when Steve tilts his head to one side, his entire body focusing towards something behind them; either Steve’s a much better actor than Billy would have credited, or he’s genuinely afraid of something. A nod to indicate that he understands, and Steve drops his hand, still tense as a dog on point. Billy cranes his neck around the trunk, tries to ignore how very close his face is to Steve’s, strains to see what dumbass thing it is that has the other boy spooked. 

He’s about to snort, half-convinced this is a prank, when he hears it. A flurry of staccato clicks, penetrating and weirdly…wet. It puts him in mind of those clickers that dog trainers on the Santa Monica Pier use, but different. Faster, and more organic. It stops, starts again, slows, speeds up.

“Harrington,” Billy says in an answering whisper. “What the fuck is that?”

In answer, Steve steps to the side, swings his bat up. Billy turns, watches him advance, slow and deliberate; some traitorous thought in the back of Billy’s mind admires his form. Billy follows a couple of paces behind him, because this is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened in Hawkins, and definitely not because, here in the dark in the theatrically spooky woods, he’s half-convinced Steve’s been telling the truth with the monster-hunting bit.

As they approach, however, the sound stops. No slowing this time, just a sharp cutoff, almost mid-click. Billy listens for a rustle, a snap of a twig, but doesn’t hear anything. He advances a pace or two further than Steve, just to prove a point, and there’s...nothing. The barely-there brush of a strand of spiderweb against his face. A momentary draft of colder air. 

One big fat lot of nothing.

“We should go.” It’s only as Steve speaks that Billy realizes how quiet it’s gone. The wind has stopped, the occasional owl hoots and rustles of animals are missing. Steve’s voice feels far too loud, a slight tremor in the words made clearer by the sudden silence.

And while Billy had been thinking the same thing, he’s damned if he’s going to say it now. “What’s the matter, Harrington?” He turns around, contemptuous leer firmly fixed on his face. “Monster hunting suddenly not fun anymore? Maybe I should take over for you here, too.”

“Give me a break.” Steve’s attention rounds back on Billy. “You couldn’t be sneaky to save your life. Not in those stompy boots.”

“Hah,” Billy says, and takes the opportunity to stomp right back up to Steve, who stares him down, unmoving. “You really are afraid, aren’t you?” One corner of his mouth curls up. “No wonder your little princess left you for the freak. You’re even crazier than he is.”

For a moment, he thinks he’s won—Steve’s face is flushed, eyes glittering almost feral in the moonlight. But then, slowly, Steve’s mouth stretches in a smile. He laughs; not a wild, hysterical laugh, but cold, a thin stream of ice water trickling down Billy’s spine. “You’re so full of shit, Hargrove.”

Billy feels his jaw tighten, and some nasty little voice in the back of his mind pipes up _your father’s jaw does the same thing when he’s angry_. “Says the asshole out hunting for imaginary creatures in the middle of the night.” He shakes his head. “You’re nuts, Harrington. Batshit loco.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve turns away, as if bored by the conversation. “I guess we have that in common, too.”

Billy snarls his contempt as he stalks past Steve, back to the Camaro. “We do not have that in common.” He turns, tossing his head, baring his teeth at Steve’s half-shadowed expression. “You and me? Have _nothing_ in common.”

The Harrington of two weeks ago would’ve flinched, would have apologized, would have placated or appeased or whatever shit they were talking about in history class. To Billy’s surprise, this Harrington stands his ground, meets his eyes, and underneath the anger, the frustration, Billy finds himself once again wondering what, exactly, happened that night. What it was that left his car scratched to shit, scuffed along one side. Whether it had anything to do with Harrington’s newfound glacial calm. 

“Then why are we both out here in the middle of the night?” Steve asks, the words hanging icicle sharp and clear in the chilly air.

A pause. Billy glances down at the bat, then back at Steve’s face. Imagines, for just a moment, telling him the truth. About the monster in his life.

Or the truth beneath the truth. The monster that he never sees, that’s always looming in the back of his mind. The part of him that’s… _wrong_.

Billy envisions the arc that bat might describe through the air, the graceful whoosh it would make. That expression of icy disdain as it connects with Billy’s head. The visceral crack, sickening and strangely satisfying. 

And then that laugh, that strange hyena giggling that he can never quite seem to control, just bubbles out of him, throwing his head back and escaping like pressurized steam into the air.

“Guess we have something in common after all,” he says, walking backwards to the door before turning back and popping it open. He laughs again, shaking his head as he gets into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut. A moment later, he sticks his head and shoulder out the window, crazed smile plastered across his face. “We’re both afraid of monsters.”

Then he’s looking over his shoulder and gunning the engine. Not turning back. And definitely not picturing Steve Harrington and his bat and his pretty pretty face briefly flooded with light before he turns the car around and roars back the way he came.


	2. a whimsical pride

It’s not like Billy’s trying to listen in on Steve’s private life. He’s minding his own business, sitting in his car, window cracked, enjoying the ritual of a morning cigarette that, along with Mötley Crüe on the speakers and the absence of his father, makes a Monday at school tolerable. But he happens to catch the sight of three figures in the rear-view mirror, and if he turns the music down to hear what it is they’re saying, well, they also have to be speaking pretty loudly to be audible, so clearly it can’t be that private.

“Steve, I’m just worried about you.” Princess Nancy, playing the concerned ex. Certainly not enjoying the opportunity to rub salt in the wound. Billy’s lip curls in a sneer as her reflection leans towards Steve’s.

“There’s nothing to be worried about, Nance. It’s over, all right?” Billy narrows his eyes, wondering what Steve’s referring to. “I’ll be fine.”

“Seriously, man, you don’t look good.” The Byers freak—well, the older Byers freak— is getting in on the action, now; Billy’s occasionally wondered what’s up with the three of them. They’re not friends, but at times they seem closer than friends, like they share some kind of dirty secret. If he hadn’t pegged Nancy for such an uptight bitch he’d think they were into kinky shit. “And I overheard Carol say she saw you walking down the street at two AM the other night.”

“Have you at least looked at those college applications I brought over?” Nancy’s voice is concerned but insistent, the I’m-pretending-to-be-your-friend-so-I-can-pry tone. “The deadlines for a couple of them are coming right up.” She and Byers are both leaning in towards Steve, now, almost predatory in their well-meaning concern.

Billy expects Steve to deflect. To shuffle out of their focus. Instead, he stands a little taller, that absurd hair giving him another inch in height. “Come on, Nancy, you know as well as I do that I’m not going to college.” He manages to say it almost with disdain, as if “college” is something for plebian children, and Billy grins around his cigarette. _Fuck yeah. There’s King Steve_. “My grades are mediocre and my essays are awful. And I don’t have any fancy artsy hobbies like taking peep shots of girls I’m stalking.” His eyes flick to Byers as he says it, and Billy remembers hearing a rumor about him and the Wheeler girl, last fall. Interesting…though it seems to have worked out for him. Maybe Nancy is less of a priss than Billy thought.

Byers, to Billy’s surprise, steps up. “My peep shots helped save all our asses, remember.” He holds his camera up, as if for emphasis.

Billy’s curious what that means, but not half so interested as he is in watching Steve square off, as if he’s winding up to throw a punch. Or to take one. “Being in the right place at the right time doesn’t make you any less of a creep.”

“So we’re back to this?” Byers doesn’t seem fuzzed by Steve’s accusations. “I’m a creep and a freak, you’re a conceited bully? Get over it, Steve. Shared trauma doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole.” Byers shakes his head. “Nancy, you can stay if you want, but I’m done here.”

He walks off towards the school, camera in hand, and Nancy follows, although not without a last worried look back at Steve. Steve watches her go, and though his back is now turned towards the Camaro (and Billy’s mirror), Billy can guess at his expression. He picks that moment to open the car door, dropping the butt of his smoke and grinding it under his heel as he grabs his bookbag and slams the door shut.

Steve turns, and the expression on his face is priceless. “Great. Just when my morning was going so well.”

“If you wanted someone to beat your face in again, pretty boy, you could’ve just asked.” Billy stretches the words out into a drawl in much the same way he stretches his arms up over his head, leaning back against the car as if he’s stiff from sitting. As if he doesn’t know how it makes his jacket and his shirt ride up, isn’t noticing the cool air—and Steve’s gaze—caressing the line of his abs. Then he bends over, grabs his bag, and straightens, one corner of his mouth not quite tugging upwards. “I’ve got some free time after basketball practice.”

“I liked the way Byers did it better.” Billy quirks an eyebrow at that, mentally adding a little more weight to his _kinky shit_ theory, and Steve sighs. “Do you have something to say, or does the new King of Hawkins just want to gloat a little more?”

“Maybe the new King of Hawkins wants to make sure your brain didn’t get taken over by monsters the other night.” Billy makes a show of looking Steve over. “Any unexpected urges over the weekend? Impure thoughts? Just think of me as your confessor.”

Steve looks at him a moment longer, then shakes his head. “You know what? Being punched by Jonathan would be preferable to this.” He turns, starts walking towards the school.

Billy shoulders his bag and falls into step beside him. Decides on the direct approach. “What’s this shared trauma shit he has on you?”

That stops Steve short for a moment, and the boy stares at him for a moment, mouth open. “What is with everyone getting up in my personal business today?”

“Just asking.” Billy shrugs it off and starts walking again, the picture of nonchalance. “I don’t get why you talk to that freak, anyway. You must really love his face-painting skills.”

Steve hesitates for a moment, but then follows. One of his shoulders rolls upward in a half-shrug. “We’ve known each other a long time. It’s…complicated.”

“‘Sit true that his brother’s crazy?”

“Jesus. No. He’s just quiet. Maybe he’d be less quiet if _assholes_ stopped harassing him about it.” He says the word pointedly.

“Kid’ll toughen up.” Billy waves a hand in the air as if flicking away an insect. “Who knows, maybe he’ll be glad for it later.”

Steve looks at Billy again, stuck half between disbelief and disgust. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”

“What can I say?” Billy’s smile is toothy. “It’s a rough world out there, amigo. Better to learn that early. Get to the top and stay there.” 

“Right.” Steve shakes his head, resigned. “For a moment, I forgot I was talking to a complete and utter psychopath.”

“I wish. It’d be easier.” They’ve reached the doorway; before them is the chaos of the hallways, the warning bell about to ring. “Whatever’s going on with Byers, fuck him. And the princess too. You don’t need them.”

“What are you even talking about?” Steve’s face is a mixture of incredulity, confusion, and annoyance...and yet despite the dismissive words, Billy can see what’s underneath it all. Something juicier. Needier. That part of Steve that he really wants to sink his teeth into.

Billy leans forward, focusing on that spark, that delicious craving for approval. Gives it his best grin. “I’m saying…there’s room at the top.” Even further forward, until he’s practically whispering in Steve’s ear. “And it’s a lot more fun up here.” Then he pulls back, flashes another shark-grin, and shoulders his pack, heading into the school.

He doesn’t have to turn to know Steve is staring after him, dumbstruck. Just before he melts into the bustle of the hallways, he hears the other boy mutter, “Incredible...”


	3. colder than this home

It’s Thanksgiving when Billy finally starts losing his mind, although given that he’s spending it with his family, he barely notices.

The clink of forks against Susan’s wedding china is the loudest sound Billy’s heard in weeks. His father passes him the gravy boat, and he dumps a little too much on his food—but fuck it, if the piece he’s currently chewing on is any indication, the turkey is dry enough to be practically inedible anyway. Still, he’s grateful for the shitty weather; the rainclouds outside make even the early holiday dinner hour almost night-time dark. Perhaps the candlelight will hide his transgression, he thinks as he passes the boat to Max, who takes it without looking at him.

It’s only been recently, in the past couple of years, that Billy’s realized exactly how strange his family’s holiday traditions are. At his house, holidays have always been split, diametrically opposed in their nature depending on the year. Some years were ‘good’ years, everything the picture of normalcy—turkey and table linens, polite talk about school and work. Most years were…less good, the festive champagne disappearing from the fridge long before the cooking began.

Billy used to long for the perfect-family years. By the time he was Max’s age, his mother was getting worse, he would hope against hope that she would pull it together, that they could all sit at the table together and try. Now that she’s gone, now that his father’s remarried and demands that everyone _put in an effort_ …now he almost wishes he could go back to the days of drunk arguing. It was manageable. It felt right; not good, but Billy’s life has never been good, just a rotating carousel of more and less shitty. That, at least, he knows how to deal with. But no…now they have to playact. Pretend to _be better_ , for Max and Susan’s sake. 

So they sit at the table. Mind their manners. Move carefully, everything posed just so. Tied down. Pinned, like insects arranged on a display board by a particularly wry entomologist.

It makes Billy’s scalp crawl.

“Billy, how does the turkey taste?” His father’s voice is innocuous, a thread of _pleasant conversation_ winding its way through the tableau. 

_Like boiled shoe leather_ , Billy thinks. Luckily the mouthful gives him an excuse to delay answering until he swallows, until he can stifle his initial reaction. “Fine,” he says, taking a drink of water. He brushes something away from his forearm—a bug, maybe, driven indoors by the awful weather outside.

“Now, Billy. What do we say to your stepmother, who worked all day to prepare it?” A gust of wind blows rain against the windows, pitter-pat, and the crawling sensation returns, thicker somehow, spider-silk twisting against his skin. 

_My stepmother, whom you barely acknowledge unless it’s to humiliate me?_ He shakes his arm off, under the table. “Thanks, Susan,” he mutters, barely audible over the weather outside.

“Maxine, how are you getting along at school?” The question might not be aimed at him, but Billy feels the texture of it regardless, the intention behind the words. _Demonstrate respect. Participate. Wind this web with me._

“Pretty okay, I guess. I had AV club last week. We took apart a radio.” Max is too big now to swing her legs under the table, but Billy gets the sense that they would be kicking out into the air if she wasn’t holding them fast to the legs of the chair. “We were trying to fix it, but it turned out the circuit board was fried.”

Billy wonders if this is a power move, or a fear response. If she’s playing along as a means to highlight Billy’s sullen quiet, or to deflect Neil’s ever-present anger away from her. Or both, maybe. Mentally, he tosses a sarcastic salute her way—he’s learned by now that that game’s unwinnable. The rules will only change, the pattern shifting mid-weave.

“That’s a real shame,” Neil responds, and Billy can almost see the cobwebs creeping out from his fingers. “I used to fix radios when I was a boy,” he continues, paternal smile fixed on Max, paralyzing her as he weaves the web to keep her in place. The good daughter. “Back then we had American-made models with parts you could replace. But these new Japanese ones are just junk. Printed circuit boards and cheap electronics. Designed to be used for a year and then thrown away.” 

Susan looks as though she might contribute something to the conversation, but all that comes out is a vaguely agreeable murmur, as if muffled by the years, the layers of webbing holding her in a cringing posture. Billy looks away, pity and hatred and contempt bubbling together in his gut.

He realizes Neil is looking at him expectantly, all but clearing his throat, and performs the quick calculus that defines his family life. How much future peace is a moment’s submission likely to buy? How generous is his father feeling? Is Maxine’s obedience enough to placate him for now, or is he simply spoiling for a fight?

What will it cost Billy, to be wrapped in those smothering webs? How long can he stand it before the fire within him bursts to the surface, incinerating the illusion, searing away any goodwill his momentary obedience might buy him?

_Not long._

Just as he opens his mouth to respond, something blows out the candles, plunges the room into darkness. Billy blinks, and a flash of lightning illuminates—

_—three figures bound head-to-toe in webbing that stretches between them, unable to move, barely breathing, silent screams visible only as divots where their mouths should be—_

“Billy?”

The light is back. The candles burn on, serene and undisturbed. Without missing a beat, Billy echoes his father’s words, survival instinct kicking in even as his senses reel. “Yeah, it’s a real shame.” 

Neil’s eyes are still on him, expectant. He straightens his spine, ignores the cold wash of fear that is only partly to do with his momentary _whatever the fuck that was_ and focuses on fanning the coals of anger that burn, continually, deep in his gut. Holds his father’s gaze, and says, with a hint of a knowing edge, “Sometimes it’s just impossible to fix things that’re broken.”

He knows he should resist the temptation to stare his father down. To make it into a challenge. To let the heat licking up from his belly shrivel the webbing into ash.

But Billy’s never been good at saying no.

“Indeed,” Neil rumbles, terrifyingly soft, his eyes never leaving Billy’s. “Some things are just… _defective._ ”


	4. when the minutes drag

“The _Dionaea muscipula_ , or Venus flytrap as it is commonly known, is native to the coastal wetlands of the Southeastern United States. It grows in poor-quality soil, and thus has evolved an ingenious way of absorbing nutrients from its environment…”

Billy is listening to the lecture with half an ear; this appears to be approximately half an ear more than most of his classmates, still in their holiday-weekend torpor. There’s no sign today of mysterious visions, no hallucinations of webbing brushing across his skin, which is almost a shame—it’s pleasantly satisfying to imagine most of his classmates as bound and covered in webbing, occasionally twitching a finger or a foot, slowly suffocating as they await some unknown monster to come and suck out their very essence—

He shakes his head, trying to clear it of the macabre image, and turns his attention back to the lecture.

“As you can see from the diagram, the interior of the flower is covered in a sweet layer, meant to attract its prey. This layer is mostly glucose, and is irresistible to many insects looking for food. Once they step upon the surface, their movements trigger the trap mechanism; the petals move from concave to convex, closing the flower around them…”

His eyes travel up two rows and across the aisle, to the back corner of Steve Harrington’s head. Steve isn’t slouching in his chair, or tapping a pencil eraser repeatedly against the page, or staring at the ceiling, or any number of his other too-cool-for-this tics; his head is bent over the diagram, spine straight. If you didn’t know him, hadn’t spent some time observing him, you might think he was actually paying attention for once.

Billy’s spent a _lot_ of time observing Steve.

He suspects that’s why Steve’s posture reads to him not as attentive, but tense. Like something’s not right. Steve, Midwestern ice king that he is, doesn’t really show emotion—everything’s always fine, loose and free and easy. Here, in the middle of class, he’s wound up tight as a drum— _like a spider’s meal_ , Billy’s brain supplies helpfully—breath shallow, the back of his neck flushed.

It’s almost pretty. Prettier than he already is. Because he’s bored, because it’s better than looking for mysterious spiderwebs everywhere, Billy indulges himself for a moment. Imagines glimpsing that flushed face in a mirror. A bathroom mirror at a party, maybe. Steve braced on his hands, hips pressed into the counter as Billy grinds up against him, whispers dirty threats—secrets—promises—into his ear. Imagines watching as those eyes meet Billy’s in the mirror, as he holds on for that one second of defiance before Billy slides his hand around, before Steve’s eyes shut of their own accord, before his lips part and he whispers a stream of soft obscenities and pleading sounds—

“Cleverly, once the trap has closed, the plant awaits several additional triggers, usually caused by the struggles of the insect, before the petals seal together into a stomach and digestive juices begin to flow, dissolving the edible part of its prey…”

Billy wrestles his attention back to the present, slouches in his chair, surreptitiously glances at Steve again. Watches him swallow, hard, which doesn’t help with his effort to set aside his fantasy. Toys with the idea of hitting him with a spitball, distracting both of them, but discards the idea as too middle-school. Blinks as Steve raises his hand.

“May I be excused to the nurse’s office? I don’t feel well.”

Another first. King Steve, asking permission to leave? He’s no goody-two-shoes, but even a deposed king thrives on attention, on an audience. True, he’s been more subdued lately, but still…something doesn’t seem right. 

Billy figures he’ll catch up with him at basketball practice, give him shit about his squeamishness. Maybe he’ll get an explanation. Maybe he’ll get rolled eyes and a dismissive huff. Or maybe, if he spins it right, he’ll glimpse that needy look again...

“Digestion takes several days; after this, the flower resets, secreting more of the glucose nectar, luring further prey into its trap…”

Billy tears his thoughts away from Steve, looking around the room. At his lethargic classmates, at the bland educational posters on the walls, at the mid-afternoon sun that’s more like late-evening sun this time of year. There’s something about it, about this whole goddamn town, that gives him the fucking creeps. Yeah, it’s a tiny little hothouse of a suburb, overheated and transparent, privacy an illusion at best, normalcy enforced through gossip chains in public and blunt fists behind closed doors. But…it’s more than that. It’s the way this place is so obsessed with its image that it completely blinds itself to all of the _weird shit_ that goes down. Even with the news recently, the nerve toxins and government conspiracy and whatnot…the whole town’s reaction had been pure denial. To become, somehow, even more normal.

“Some insects manage to escape the trap, either by wriggling out before digestion activates and seals the petals together, or by playing dead and avoiding triggering digestion at all. This requires patience, as the flower will not begin to re-open for several hours, but there is a short window during the reopening during which the insect can flee before the trap is ready to close again...”

Hawkins has a role for everyone to play, prescribes and enforces and devours that role…and yet, the roles seem to exist solely for their occupants to rebel against. Mrs. Wheeler, practically coming onto him in the middle of the night. Steve and his weekend ‘monster hunting’. Those kids and their creepy-ass secret meetings. Max, his younger smaller stepsister, and her refusal to be cowed by him. Billy, the new Keg King of Hawkins, and his…well. 

The question is, why? What’s this town hiding? What is it so collectively terrified of people finding out? And if during the daytime people are so eager to follow the rules, to wrap themselves in layers upon layers of restrictive webbing, why do they struggle against it at night?

His gaze falls upon the empty desk and he wonders for a moment if his obsession with Steve is part of his role, or part of his resistance. Wonders if the old metaphor about moths and flames applies here.

Wonders if they’re all moths, and Hawkins is one giant _Dionaea muscipula_.


	5. lost in the spaces of who we are

Even if he hadn’t shot off his mouth. Even if the Camaro’s keys weren’t currently in Neil’s pocket. Even if things were better, Billy would be walking tonight, the restless energy spurring him on towards no particular destination. He strides along the side of the road as if he has a very specific person in mind that he needs to punch, just as soon as he catches up to them. Neither the woods nor the deserted roadway get so much as a glance. 

He’s just put a cigarette in his mouth, leather jacket creaking at the elbow, when he sees the familiar shadow ahead. Feels the familiar flare of energy rise up inside of him. “Hey, King Steve!” 

“Hargrove.” Steve comes over, his head tilted. “Are you trying to wake the neighborhood? It’s past midnight. People are sleeping.”

“People, huh? But still not you.” Billy talks around his cigarette, stops a few feet away to light it. The distant streetlamp gives just enough light for Billy to see the way Steve’s face is almost healed—even the scar at his hairline faded to invisibility. As if they’d never fought, that night. As if Billy had never messed up that pretty face. 

He takes a drag at his cigarette. Pulls it from his mouth, holds it in for a moment, then blows smoke. “You’re really creeping me out, Harrington. You skip basketball practice all week, you avoid me in the hallways, but this is twice now I’ve seen you out here. What gives?”

Steve grins, no trace of ice in him tonight. Just an undomesticated edge that nicely complements the nail-struck baseball bat ( _still_ ) dangling from one hand. That speaks to the agitated energy kindling in Billy’s gut, two puzzle pieces on the verge of forming a picture painted in bruises and blood. “You’ve got that wrong, Hargrove,” Steve replies. “This is the second time _I’ve_ seen _you_.”

Billy waves away the point with his smoking hand, lets the ember skitter out the gesture in the dark. “Whatever. Find any monsters yet?”

If anything, the grin goes wider, the grip on the bat deceptively loose as it swings in indifferent arcs. Steve’s response is flippant, singsong—almost Billy-like. “Just you, Hargrove. Just you.”

Billy laughs, but it’s quiet this time, low. A prelude, as he feels the familiar heat of adrenaline rising to the surface, prickling over his skin. “Finally. You’re looking for a rematch.”

“Nah.” Steve steps closer, eyes on Billy’s. “You think you’re hot shit, Hargrove, but I’ve seen things that would make you mess your pants in terror.” A beat, as Steve sweeps fever-bright eyes over Billy’s form. “You’re small potatoes.”

Not to be outdone, Billy steps forward, stands before Steve, their heights evenly matched on the slightly uneven ground. “Small potatoes or no, I can still beat your face in.” The tone is casual, but he can feel the predatory energy coiling in his gut, laying the groundwork for whatever comes next.

This time, Steve is the one who laughs, spins away towards the line of trees as he releases that strange half-hysterical laughter that Billy is used to hearing from his own throat. “You trying to scare me, Hargrove? You’re not even the third scariest thing in my life.”

Billy takes another step forward, following in this strange dance. “Maybe you should give me a chance, Harrington.”

Steve drops the bat, then, turns back to Billy. Opens his arms wide against the forest. “All right, then. Give it your best shot. Frighten me.” He jerks his head up, as if beckoning Billy forward. “Come on.”

It’s a taunt. A goad. A provocation. Wide, dark eyes fixed on his. “Come on.”

Billy’s not certain what’s gotten into Steve, but this face, at least, he knows. Knows the unspoken rest of the sentence. _I know you want to. Come on and take it._ A way of asserting control over uncontrollable circumstances.

Billy likes being uncontrollable circumstances. Likes being a force of nature, likes watching people hunker down in the path of his oncoming hurricane. He’s the reason for that tone—an invitation, a challenge. He’s the reason Steve Harrington’s teeth are bared in a grimace that’s almost a grin.

Slowly, intentionally, he steps toward Steve. Slowly, firmly, he presses his palm into Steve’s chest, backing the taller boy up against the tree. Slowly, deftly, he reaches up with his other hand, still holding the cigarette; brushes Steve’s cheekbone with his thumb. “You feeling safe in that big house of yours, pretty boy?” Not that he’s ever driven by Steve’s house. Seen the size of it, the light spilling from the windows at all hours of the night. Not that he’s eyeing the dark circles under Steve’s eyes, smelling the whiskey on his breath.

Given his icy calm of late, Billy had half-expected Steve’s skin to be cool, even clammy; he’s surprised to feel it burning, nearly as hot as his own. “Safe enough.”

Billy chuckles, low. “Liar.” His thumb whispers into the edge of shadowed space, so close to Steve’s eye, but the guy doesn’t even twitch. Just smiles, wild. 

“You going to take a swing at me for it?”

“Maybe.” Billy removes his hand, takes a last puff on the cigarette, pauses. Drops the butt, blows smoke—not into Steve’s face, precisely, but not precisely away, either. “So what do you do when you can’t find any monsters to bash apart?”

Steve tilts his head forward, his tone conspiratorial. “I guess I just go looking for trouble.”

Billy feels one corner of his mouth turn upward. “No wonder we keep running into each other. I’m the most trouble you’re going to find in this podunk town.”

Their gazes hold for a moment, but it’s not quite a confrontation. An assessment, maybe. Maybe something more intimate as well. A reading. A test.

Then Steve says, “For tonight? Let’s pretend that’s true.”

The smile spreads across Billy’s face like warm poisoned honey. “You know, my mother always said I was trouble.”

“Did she?”

“Oh yeah. ‘Billy-boy, with your baby blues and your golden hair, you’re nothing but trouble.’” Billy illustrates the words with a petal-soft brush of his thumb at the corner of Steve’s eye, with the lightest combing of his fingers through Steve’s hair, against the scalp. Feels, through his other hand, the hitch of Steve’s breath. 

“Where is she now?” Steve’s voice is lower, with a rough overlay that wasn’t there before; his eyes hold Billy’s, bottomless in the dark.

“Dunno.” Billy slides his hand down to the side of Steve’s neck, feels the warmth, the cords of muscle taut beneath his fingers. Sees the heat that blazes behind Steve’s eyes. Decides to push his luck just a little further. “She disappeared when I was thirteen.” The lightest of brushes, a ghosting of his thumb across Steve’s windpipe, and he feels the other boy’s whole body give a tightly constrained jerk. Sees his lips part, feels him suck in a breath—

_Click. Click-click-click. Click click. Click click click clickety click-clickety click click clickclick click._

Billy, annoyed by the interruption and disquieted by the noise, tilts his torso to the side, trying to pierce the chill gloom of the woods. Steve turns his head, looks around the trunk, but once again it’s too dark to see anything.

Steve turns, looks back at him. “You have a flashlight?”

Billy blinks, then laughs, makes a sharp sound of disbelief. “Why the hell would I have a flashlight? You’re the monster hunter.”

“I wasn’t expecting…” Steve’s voice trails off, because what can he say? Of course he wasn’t expecting to find an actual monster. Monsters aren’t real. Not unless they wish Billy a good day at school over the newspaper each morning.

Billy mutters a curse and steps forward. Pulls out his Zippo, raises it overhead as he flicks the wheel. The flame leaps, enough to cast a bit of light on the trees directly before them as he moves a few paces into the woods. Then a few more. Billy hears Steve’s footfalls behind him, glances back. Steve has picked the bat up again, holds it in a defensive posture. Billy hums deep in his throat, almost approving, then turns back as they continue into the woods.

Not that there’s anything to see. It just looks like trees; there’s nothing unusual that he can make out. Until—

“Jesus.” Steve is moving forward, nudging with his bat at something that Billy had thought was lichen or fungus growing all over one tree. As the nails catch and spread it out, however, Billy sees that it’s far less substantial. Almost—ephemeral. Like fine lace, hanging limp and rotted with age.

“It’s just a spiderweb, Harrington.”

“No way. Spiderwebs are pretty. All spiraling and stuff. This…” Steve moves the bat, lifting another tangle of cobweb hanging from another branch. “This is like a spider was on meth and just went _nuts_.”

Billy only grins. “You’ve never seen a black widow’s web before?”

Steve turns, blinking at Billy in the wan light. “Aren’t they poisonous?”

“Fuck yeah. Got bit by one when I was fourteen. That was a miserable couple of days in bed.”

Steve, sheltered little rich boy that he is, stares at Billy, his already ridiculously large eyes somehow even bigger. “And you didn’t go to the hospital?”

Billy snorts. “Like my old man would pay for a hospital stay. Had to tough it out like a big boy.” He shrugs and steps forward, holds the lighter up. And some part of him thinks maybe this isn’t a great idea, it’s dark and there’s an awful lot of webs here—do black widows live in nests?—but no way is he going to back down now, not with this pretty boy from backcountry Indiana looking at him like he can’t decide if Billy’s the coolest or the most insane person he’s ever met.

A split-second before Billy raises his hand, Steve seems to realize his intent, whether through body-language or the world’s shittiest telepathy. “No, don’t—!” But Billy’s already setting the flame to the webbing; dry as it is, it shrivels, catches. There’s not really enough substance for it to burn; rather, the glow seems to travel spontaneously along the filaments, a brief eruption of light outlining the tree. A fleeting halo that crumbles away in a handful of dust.

For a breath, nothing happens.

Then Steve cries out into the dark.

“Harrington?” Billy turns, half-expecting to see him stumbling into a pit, or swinging wildly at an attacker, or something to justify the pure terror he’d heard in that sound—but Steve simply bolts.

Billy dashes after him, cursing as they run deeper into the woods. He’s running half-blind, eyes still dazzled by flame, the wan half-moon barely able to penetrate through the trees. “Harrington!” He can hear Steve’s footfalls ahead of him: the crack of dried twigs, the crisp swish of dead leaves, the ragged gasps of Steve’s breath. Billy’s legs piston beneath him, pushing him forward, determined to catch up, to demand an explanation, to fight off whatever spooked Steve in the first place—just as soon as he catches up, as his breath stops burning in his chest—

A grunt and a thud up ahead signal Billy to slow down. He does, his eyes gradually adjusting, but without the sounds or movement to guide the way, there’s no immediate sign of where Steve fell. He looks left, looks right. Takes a few steps forward, looks around again. Shifts his weight from foot to foot. It’s too damn dark, there are too many shadows. He could walk right past Steve, and he might be dazed, might not see him—

A groan catches Billy’s attention, and he walks a little to the left, finds Steve sprawled gracelessly on the ground by a fallen tree. Billy squats down next to him, breathing carefully and steadily, hoping his relief doesn't show on his face. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Rise and shine.”

Steve lifts his head, his voice thick, as if he really is waking up. “Billy?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He eyes Steve for a moment. “What the fuck was that about?”

“‘M not sure.” Steve presses himself up, rubs at his shoulder. “I was holding the bat...the spiderwebs were burning...I felt cold...then I was scared.” 

“No fucking shit you were scared. You ran a good half a mile.” Billy’s looking him over, but can’t really see anything in the dark. “Are you hurt?”

“The bat.” Steve doesn’t seem to have heard him, looks suddenly panicked. “I dropped the bat. Where is it?”

Billy shrugs. “Hell if I know. Back there somewhere. You can come back for it later.”

“No. I need the bat.” Steve is up on his hands and knees, scrabbling around as if it might be nearby. “It’s important. I—” 

“Hey. Hey, look at me, okay?” Billy puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder, pushes him back onto his haunches, waits for him to calm. Looks him in the eye as much as the vague half-moon light will allow. “Did you hit your head?”

“Don’t think so. Just cold. And tired.” Steve rubs at his head, as if confirming his words, then something alters in his expression. “Don’t feel good,” he abruptly announces, and a moment later confirms the statement by doubling over, vomiting onto the ground.

“Shit, you must’ve been drunker than I thought.” Of course the former keg king can hold his liquor, Billy realizes, kicking himself mentally for not picking up on the cause of Steve’s erratic behavior sooner. And now they’re a good walk away from the road…well, nothing for it. He waits until Steve’s done, lets him breathe for a moment. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll help you home.”

Steve still seems out of it, but he’s recovered enough to narrow his eyes at Billy. “Three weeks ago you beat the shit out of me. What’s going on, Hargrove?”

“I’m not going to let you die out here in the woods. Everyone would think I did it, and I'm not pretty enough to get away with it.” Billy slings one of Steve’s limp arms over his shoulders. 

Steve gives an honest-to-god giggle. "You're pretty enough."

"Not rich enough, then," Billy answers, ignoring the sudden warmth in his gut. “Come on, now. Three, two, one...and up!”

Steve makes it up on wobbly legs, hiccups—Billy prepares to drop him again—but seems to get himself under control. Then he tries to pull away a little. “You can leave me. I’ll be okay in a bit, you don’t have to—”

“Actually, I do.” Billy talks over him as he scans the forest. “You’re the one who knows which direction the road is in.” There’s no familiar landmarks, no horizon—even with his eyes better adapted to the dark, the trees all look more or less the same. “Which way, princess?”

Steve gestures. “Road’s that way. Other way’s a swamp. Would’ve probably run right into it if I hadn’t tripped.” 

“Huh. Hawkins just gets more and more charming.” When Steve doesn't answer, he glances over, sees himn tilting his head back, looking up at the sky. “What’s up?”

“Just the stars.” Steve’s voice seems smaller, somehow. “I like them. They’re...always there. They don’t care what we do. What we’re scared of. It’s nice to remember they’re out there.” A pause, and then even more quietly, “Sometimes I dream about a place with no stars.” He shivers, and the mental image is so strangely clear and terrifying in Billy’s mind that he has to suppress an answering tremor in his body.

“Sometimes I dream about a giant mouse that’s eating holes into my house like Swiss cheese.” Billy’s tone is perhaps a little more dismissive than he means, so he wraps an arm around Steve’s torso, guiding him towards the road. “Stars’ll always be there, pretty boy.” A few steps, and they work out a rhythm, not quite a dance, but not a stumble, either. “Let’s get you to bed.”

And for once, Steve follows without argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://missroserose.tumblr.com/) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/missroserose). Come say hi!


	6. Step on the glass, staple your tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy catches his gaze, gives an exhale that’s almost a laugh. “So what’s the hospital have to say? Is it terminal?”
> 
> Steve knows the diner lights aren’t doing the bags under his eyes any favors, the sallow color of his skin sickly under the fluorescents. “Lucky for you, I’m not contagious. Doc says I just need to get some rest.”
> 
> “Seems like you slept okay last night.”
> 
> Steve glances up sharply at that. He’d assumed….well, he’d assumed a lot of things about last night, starting with his memories being untrustworthy, and ending with _even if Billy Hargrove did help me home, he did it for his own reasons and definitely left afterward_. Had assumed that the sensation of being watched over, the smell of cigarette smoke, was an artifact of his agitated brain. “Do you get off on watching, Hargrove?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience, friends! Rather than uploading multiple chapters at the end of the month (and spamming all my wonderful subscribers' inboxes), I'm going to attempt a weekly posting schedule. We'll see how this works out...
> 
> Another big round of thanks to my betas, especially [suitofarmour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitofarmour/pseuds/suitofarmour) and [blahblahblahcollapse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blahblahblahcollapse), for their continuing feedback and support!

Steve drives his father’s BMW through downtown Hawkins, his brain occupying itself by noting the festive ribbons and lights and garlands set against the still-green lawns. The sunlight, closer in timbre and temperature to late October than the start of December, paints the entire town with a nostalgic air, like those studio portraits that look like they’ve been taken through a layer of Vaseline. The warmer weather certainly hasn’t dampened Hawkins’ enthusiasm for decorating—the streetlamps sprout shaped-tinsel candy canes and wreaths like strange fungi, the houses glitter with colored bulbs that burn steady and bright. As Steve passes Mulberry Street, he catches a glimpse of the Hayes family’s house, covered in blinking lights that play cheerful music day and night as animatronic sculptures gesture to a full-size lit crêche. Wonders, distantly, how many batches of homemade cookies have gone to bribe Florence into keeping the complaint calls from Hopper’s desk.

Looking at this town, no one would think that anything supernatural had ever occurred here. Even the smaller upsets seem out of place, aberrations—you’d never guess that Lonnie Byers used to beat his wife before he ran out on her, or that Nicole’s father pays child support to several former secretaries, or that Eduardo, flipping burgers in the kitchen of Hawkins’ aggressively generic diner, is an ex-con who did time for drug possession. It all looks so carefully groomed and manicured and…well, normal.

For a weekend, Steve had almost felt normal. His parents had come home for Thanksgiving, catered turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy carefully packed into Styrofoam tubs, and the following day they’d gone Christmas shopping. Even without any real sense of holiday cheer, Steve had found relief in the traditions, in mouthing along the scripted call-and-responses with neighbors, in submitting to his mother’s fond indignities. These things, Steve could do—carry packages, discuss weather and shopping lists and cookie recipes, wear the horrible sweater that his grandmother sent, pose for the annual family portrait. He’d listened, numbly, as his mother paid extra for the touch-up service; if the photographer managed to soften the hollows in his cheeks, reduce the dark circles under his eyes, so much the better. He certainly has no desire to be reminded of the truth of this period in his life.

Steve wrestles his thoughts back into the present as he pulls into the parking lot. Despite his summer-weight polo shirt, he’s nearly sweating in the fetid air that tastes of late summer held over far too long. The bell over the door tinkles as he pushes inside the blessedly air-conditioned diner, tables mostly full on a Saturday morning—he spots Nicole and Carol leaning in together, red hair identically feathered, making them look like sisters gossiping. They glance over at him; Carol’s face looks a little blotchy, but they look away without acknowledgement, and Steve isn’t about to press.

Luckily there’s an open booth toward the back, and he slouches into it, grateful for the extra wall to lean against. He’d slept surprisingly well after his adventure last night, but somehow it only seems to have made him all the more exhausted. As if his body, realizing what it’s been missing, is demanding payment for all the missed nights, with interest.

His parents had left again yesterday morning. Work conference followed by sales meeting followed by holiday trip to the Caribbean—a trip that, his father heavily implied, Steve might have been invited on had his grades been better. Had _you shown me evidence that you are giving serious thought to your future_. Steve had only nodded, looked contrite, promised to do better. Known that it was a lie even as the words left his lips. Ignored the look of patronizing disappointment that held near-permanent residence on his father’s face. Waved at them as they piled their luggage into a cab and left for the airport.

He’s going to be eighteen next spring. He has his father’s Mastercard and some cash for incidentals.

He can take care of himself.

Besides, Steve thinks as the waitress pours him coffee, as he pretends to focus on the laminated menu, he doesn’t really miss them. The probing questions, the disappointed sighs, even the agitated voices he overheard arguing after he’d gone to bed, comforting and familiar—none of it bothers him for its absence. Maybe he misses, a little, the way his mother still sometimes smiles at him, but even that seems to be growing less common as he gets older, as she becomes more preoccupied with work…

He barely registers the bell over the door tinkling again, lost as he is in tearing open sugar packets and pouring them into his coffee. But the presence of Billy Hargrove as he flops down on the bench across from him is difficult to miss. Steve blinks, feeling stupid, as Billy nods at him, that perennial almost-smirk turning up one corner of his mouth. Watches as Billy orders a soda, leans back, picks up a menu, looking for all the world as if they’d planned to meet here.

Steve takes a sip of the coffee, letting the bitter-sweet taste of it coat the inside of his mouth. Billy glances at him over the menu, looking him over, apparently in no hurry to speak. The moment hangs suspended, and he wonders, not for the first time, why it is Billy seems hellbent on turning everything into a competition.

Finally, Steve opens his mouth, cursing his sluggish brain. “Good morning?”

“Morning. How’s the hangover?”

“Bitchin’.” Steve pulls a face. “If drinking is what the cool kids do, I’ll be King Steve again in no time.” He slurps another sip of coffee. “Better watch your throne, Hargrove. It’s not safe.”

“But what good’s a throne without someone to fight for it?” The smirk is curling up into a grin, and Steve wonders vaguely if Billy has any expressions other than “angry” or “predatorial”. 

“You’ve already proven your superiority, man. No need to keep up the fight.”

The smile remains, but Billy’s eyes grow sharper. “There’s always a fight.”

They’re interrupted by the waitress, who takes their orders—pancakes and eggs for Steve, a burger for Billy—and refills Steve’s coffee. Steve pulls the creamer basket over, methodically tears the foil off of several packets of half-and-half and dumps them in. Rips open the sugar packets and does the same before stirring. Looks up to see Billy watching him, smile gone, eyes…calculating? Steve’s not quite certain, but the look is intense.

Billy catches his gaze, gives an exhale that’s almost a laugh. “So what’s the hospital have to say? Is it terminal?”

Steve knows the diner lights aren’t doing the bags under his eyes any favors, the sallow color of his skin sickly under the fluorescents. “Lucky for you, I’m not contagious. Doc says I just need to get some rest.”

“Seems like you slept okay last night.”

Steve glances up sharply at that. He’d assumed….well, he’d assumed a lot of things about last night, starting with his memories being untrustworthy, and ending with _even if Billy Hargrove did help me home, he did it for his own reasons and definitely left afterward_. Had assumed that the sensation of being watched over, the smell of cigarette smoke, was an artifact of his agitated brain. “Do you get off on watching, Hargrove?”

“I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be for an hour. Figured I’d make sure you didn’t get up and go wandering again.” Billy shrugs, as if it’s totally normal for teenage boys to stand guard over each other’s bedsides. “Think how bad I’d feel if I’d left and the closet monster had eaten you.”

“Lucky for you, I have a deal with the Easter bunny for protection.” The coffee having been adulterated enough to be drinkable, Steve takes another slurp. Slowly begins to feel human again. 

“Psh. Everyone knows the Easter Bunny is running a racket. Should've gone for the big guns and talked to Santa.”

"Yeah, well, I hear Santa only cares about the good little boys and girls.” 

Billy smiles once, quick, light flashing from the edge of a knife. "Too pretty to be good, are you? Guess we'll just have to take care of each other.”

And that look…muzzy as Steve is feeling, there’s a distinct tingling at the base of his spine. Similar to a fight-or-flight response, but…different. Steve wonders if this conversation is going to end with his face being rearranged. Decides to change the subject. 

“Thanks, by the way. For helping me home last night.” Another sip of coffee. “I guess I was more fucked up than I realized.”

“Whiskey hits hard.” Billy shrugs, and Steve remembers that he left the mostly-empty bottle on the counter. Wonders if Billy was snooping through his house, after he fell asleep last night. “Vodka’s cleaner, I’ve found. Less of a hangover, too.”

“Yeah, but my father doesn’t keep bottles of vodka worth hundreds of dollars around the house.” Steve flashes a smile that’s a little more vicious than he maybe intends.

It’s worth it to see the expression mirrored on Billy’s face. “Next time you go on a bender, invite me over. I’ve never got drunk on fancy whiskey before. And I’ll keep you from dashing off like a scared rabbit.”

 _Sure...next time I’m feeling like getting my face smashed in_ , Steve thinks. His mouth opens. “Deal,” he says. 

They regard each other for a moment. Then Steve asks, “Do you ever have moments where you just lose control?”

Billy looks at him, blank, before a bark of incredulous laughter bursts from his lips. “You’re asking me this? Don’t you remember a month ago?” 

Steve shrugs a little. “I mean, for all I know you could’ve known exactly what you were doing. Just been enjoying yourself.”

Billy gives a sort of grunt, slouches a little in the back of the booth. Pulls out a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket, lights one. “Maybe I did,” he says, taking a pull, holding for a moment before blowing smoke into the space between them. “Maybe I enjoyed the hell out of messing up your pretty face.”

Steve tilts his head slightly. Billy Hargrove is hard to read, but Steve thinks he sees…guilt? Shame? That seems unlikely. But possibly…”Or maybe you regret it?”

A sound, deep in Billy’s throat. “Regretting it now doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it then.”

“What do you do, then?” Steve’s surprised to feel a surge of emotion as he asks, though he wrestles the pleading note from his voice with an effort. “How do you manage?”

Billy gives another little burst of laughter, one that flickers around the edges. “Weren’t you there, Harrington? I’m the last person who can help you with that.” He takes another drag, thoughtful, blows it out. “Mostly I just have to…ride it out. Deal with the consequences later.” 

Steve’s smile feels hollow in the middle. “And here I was worried something was wrong with me.”

“Just means we’re both fucked up, princess. Nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Steve scoffs a little at the nickname, but eventually drops his gaze, fiddles with the menus in the rack. 

Another thoughtful pull, blue eyes contemplating him. “Sometimes I can channel it. Go for a walk. Work out. Once I found a straightaway at 2 AM and just opened the throttle on the Camaro. Got a speeding ticket, though. Neil about hit the roof.”

Steve notes the lack of paternal title, but before he can comment, the food arrives. Billy stubs his cigarette out in the plastic ashtray and digs in, seeming to relish his greasy burger; Steve eats a few bites, but mostly picks at the eggs.

Finally he speaks again. “I almost lost it in the cafeteria the other day.”

Billy gives him a raised eyebrow, talks with his mouth full. “Hot lunch was that terrible?” He swallows. “Or did somebody insult those little freaks you babysit?”

“Don’t call them that.” There’s no heat in the words, really; Steve is too caught up reliving the memory. “No. I wasn’t even talking to anyone. One moment I was fine, eating like usual, and the next everything was suddenly just…too much. Too loud, too many conversations. Too much movement.” He shakes his head. “I’m probably going crazy.”

“Sleep deprivation is nasty stuff,” Billy offers, cheeks full of burger. Another moment to chew. “One week, Neil got it into his head that I wasn’t disciplined enough. So he put me on Marine hours. School all day, chores in the evening, up until midnight finishing homework, up again at four in the morning for more chores. By the end of the week I was ready to bite the head off the world for simply existing in my space.”

Steve can’t help a wry smile at that. “More than usual, you mean?”

Billy gives a sharp laugh. “So much worse. I was losing my shit at the prospect of going to the grocery store.”

“Damn. Your old man sounds like a real hardass.” Steve manages another bite, suddenly grateful for his absentee parents.

Billy shrugs with a studied sort of detachment. “It wasn’t so bad when we lived in California. I knew I could run away to my aunt’s house if it got to be too much. Or just go to the beach. Hang out and watch the waves awhile.”

Steve finds himself fascinated by Billy’s face. It’s devoid of expression in a way that somehow expresses itself with complete eloquence. “Why’d you move?”

“It wasn’t up to me, pretty boy.” Billy shoves the last of the burger in his mouth, starts on the fries. “What about you? Ever visit anyplace that isn’t here?”

“Sure. Disneyland when I was a kid. Ski trips in the winter. A cruise through Hawaii. A walled resort in Costa Rica. All the stuff rich people are supposed to do.” Steve shrugs. “Nowhere real. Just…places my parents could take pictures to show their friends. Brag about how they’re doing everything _good_ parents do.”

“They’re not good parents?”

Steve shrugs. “I guess. They pretty much let me do what I want, these days, given how often they’re out of town.”

“Lucky asshole.” Billy chuckles. “Why isn’t your house Party Central?”

“Because cleaning puke out of the carpet gets old after the fourteenth time?” Steve shakes his head. “I used to do all of that. Host keggers. Sneak into girls’ bedrooms. Stay out until all hours. Then I went through some shit, and suddenly it all seemed so…pointless.”

“You saying you’ve changed? ‘Cause the grapevine has it that you were sneaking into your girl’s bedroom not three months ago.”

Steve glances at Billy sharply, but Billy's face seems genuine. He spreads his hands, a trace of ketchup clinging to one finger. “Just what I’ve heard from the rumor mill.”

Steve sighs. “Well, that’s not happening again anytime soon.” He takes another bite of his pancakes, less because he’s hungry and more to give himself some time to answer. “I guess it’s more like…I’ve realized there’s so many things that can go wrong at any given moment. Like, way more than we can even conceive of. And anything I do might cascade into a giant pile of shit, might make things worse for me, or for the people I care about, and the worst part is I don’t know. I don’t know what choices are the right ones.”

Billy thinks this over. “Seems to me like you give too much of a shit.”

Steve gives a laugh, sudden and surprised. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of that. Usually I’m the king of not giving a shit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got you. Rich kid, party boy, coasting by on good looks and charm and Daddy’s money. Sleeping around. Throwing parties.” Billy shoves another two French fries into his mouth, chewing as he rakes over Steve with his clear gaze before he pins him like a butterfly. “All so you wouldn’t be alone.”

Steve’s instinct is to give an icy smile, to laugh, to pretend Billy has no clue what he’s talking about. But under those blue eyes, the urge dies before it reaches his lips. “Alone?” he manages, instead.

“It’s not hard to see, Harrington. Look at you now, without your crown. No friends. Parents gone all the time, probably never cared about you aside from the pictures. Shitty grades. Just marking time until graduation, so you can get a job at Daddy’s office.” He drops his gaze, eats another French fry, looks up again. “No wonder you can’t sleep. Nobody gives a shit about you. Next year no one’s even going to remember King Steve. You’re wandering around this town like a ghost, because you are.” 

Steve feels his cheeks heat, and wonders for a mad moment what Billy would say if he told him what it is that haunts him at night. “All right, asshole. You’ve got all the answers. You tell me. What do I do? Hold an exorcism?”

Billy is unperturbed. “I told you. Give less of a shit.” He looks up for a moment, meets Steve’s gaze. “The world can take care of itself. It always has. And God knows it doesn’t give a shit about us. Fuck them.”

The words hit home, in a way Steve doesn’t want to admit. All that effort, all that time spent saving the world or whatever, and his world has shrunk to this. School. Homework. An occasional phone call from a pubescent teenager. He feels cold, as if his insides have just discovered the missing Indiana winter. “More advice from the town psychopath,” he bites out, the words brittle in his mouth.

Billy’s cheeks redden a little, but he keeps his cool. “All I’m saying is, maybe you’d be happier.”

Steve tries to remember the last time he was happy. Maybe…last Christmas. Snuggling on the couch with Nancy. Or maybe before that, chugging beers with Tommy at a party, blessedly unaware and uncaring of what the future held in store. “Is ignorance the same thing as happiness?”

“Fuck no. Ignorance is not knowing. Happiness is not caring.” Billy shoves the last few fries into his mouth. 

An image of Nancy flickers through Steve’s mind, her face relaxing into that rare expression of absolute delight that always felt like a sunbeam on a grey day. Steve feels his lips curl into a smile as bitter as the diner’s coffee. “Then tell me. What do you do when you want something?” Billy’s eyes flick to his, startled, and for a moment he feels triumph—a small, cold lump of satisfaction in his chest. The feeling of wisdom born through harsh experience. “How do you go about getting it, when your whole life all you’ve practiced is _not giving a shit_?”

Billy’s face is blank, but even in the sallow diner lights, he looks…pale. Finally he sits back, eyes feverish on Steve’s. “I learn not to want it, pretty boy.”

Steve feels that prickling again, at the base of his spine. There’s something happening in this moment, something invisible but present, tunnels growing beneath their feet, just waiting to grow large enough for the ground to collapse and swallow them whole.

Then the waitress arrives with the check. Steve turns to thank her, and the moment is lost.

When he turns back, Billy’s standing, gathering up his things. “Look, it’s your life, Harrington. I’m just trying to save you some heartbreak.” 

Steve laughs a little at the image of _Billy Hargrove_ trying to save him from anything. “You’re about a month too late, but thanks anyway.”

Billy shrugs on his jacket, but before he goes, his eyes catch Steve’s once more, just for a moment. “There’s always a next time.” And something in that gaze makes Steve’s flippancy shrivel on the vine. 

Then he turns, and in a swirl of hair tonic and cigarette smoke and leather smell, he’s gone.

Sticking Steve with the check.


	7. I just wanna see a better day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El’s voice brings him back to the present. “You found another protector.” It’s not jealous or angry or accusing, merely certain. As if she’s stating the obvious.
> 
> Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s…it’s not like that. Billy’s not a friend.”
> 
> “Protectors aren’t always friends.” El looks down, toys with the laces on her Keds. “Papa protected me.”
> 
> He doesn’t know what to say; usually in moments like these, he smiles and nods and lets the other person continue the conversation. But that doesn’t work with El; she merely waits. Finally he says, “I don’t think he’s as bad as your Papa.”
> 
> “Depends.” Her tone carries a sage certainty that would be ludicrous on any other thirteen-year-old. “He’s young. He can change.” Then, almost a little sad, “He has a Papa, too.”

Sunday morning finds Steve driving along the county road just as he’s done a million times before in his life: the long stretch of blacktop ahead, the buildings gradually growing further apart, the signs for farms and seasonal produce sales, all more or less unchanged over the years. 

His chest aches a little, looking out over these farms, these woods. It feels both forever ago and barely yesterday that he and Tommy were running through them, extended and elaborate games of chase forgotten as soon as dinner time came around. Forever ago since he was bringing girls on walks along the abandoned train tracks, a mysterious electricity building in the space between them the further they got from home. Forever ago since he was herding the basketball team and their celebratory kegs between trunks and over fallen logs, anticipation and excitement mingling with the illicit thrill of keeping out of sight.

The forest is unchanged, but Steve finds himself eyeing it, the warm syrupy sunlight that pours over the trees, with distrust.

Warm weather or no, it’s December, and darkness comes early. 

He glances at his gas gauge, mentally checks the last time he’d taken the car in for an oil change. Anxiety nips at his heels—visions of a flat tire in the middle of the night, of walking back to town only to put a foot wrong and stumble down into blackness and terror and thick, malicious air clogged with seeds and spores. 

He hates this. Hates how his woods have been taken from him, replaced by this changeling forest that threatens and imperils when it should soothe and protect. Hates how he can practically taste the wrongness of the air in that other place. Hates how he can feel his throat closing up, breath coming in shallow gasps—

His hand scrabbles for the window lever; the glass lowers and he sticks his head out, sucks in long breaths of the fresh, fast-moving air. Remembering something Billy said yesterday, he gives a joyless grin as he hits the accelerator, speeding past trees and ditches and the occasional driveway or mailbox. The noise and feel of the wind against his face, the thrumming of the BMW’s engine, the adrenaline of reaction times shaved down to fractions of a second—all of it helps push the panic away, and he even lets out a whoop, albeit one of determination rather than jubilance.

The turnoff is barely marked, little more than a track off of the main road; Steve almost misses it, lost as he is in the rush of speed. He slams on the brakes and just barely makes the turn, slowing as his car bumps along the rutted path. A little further, a few twists and turns, and Steve’s pulling up next to the familiar tire tracks of a Chevy Blazer. He gets out, grabs his carryall off of the passenger seat, checks to make sure the flashlight is in it, and shoulders it for the last half-mile walk through the trees.

El is delighted to see him, and gives him a huge hug almost as soon as she opens the door. Her hair is at the start of what will eventually be a cascade of curls down her shoulders, but for now is still wild, growing off in all directions. Steve notes, with pride, that her clothing looks downright stylish. The hand-me-downs don’t quite fit her—the jeans are a little too tight, the sweater baggy and loose—but it’s sort of a look, like she’s making a fashion statement. Especially with her white Keds, she could pass for an adorably mussed catalog model. Steve remembers how much she liked the sweater, bright yellow with a neckline wide enough to fall off of one shoulder, when he brought it to her a few weeks ago—a remnant of some ages-ago brief girlfriend, left at his house and forgotten, now given new life by El’s attention and love. 

“Here. I brought you some new books.” Steve hands her the brightly-colored hardbacks, cheerful pictures of cartoon animals and imaginary plants and creatures invented solely for their rhyming properties. “Ready to get started?”

“Did you bring Eggos?” She looks hopeful, though even Steve can smell a distraction in the offing.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Let’s do some reading first and see how you’re coming along.”

She sighs, but sits at the kitchen table, obediently opening _Yertle the Turtle_. Haltingly, she begins to sound out the words: “In the far-a-way iss-land” (“Eye-land”, Steve corrects) “of Sal-A-Ma-Sond…” 

Steve flops down into a chair next to her, offering occasional help and corrections, leaning back against the wall. He’d hoped that Friday night would be an indicator that his insomnia was over, but by hour three of lying in bed last night, staring at the ceiling, he had to accept that it was only a temporary reprieve. If anything, it made the exhaustion worse, like that one taste had made his body more aware of the debt, stirred up discontent as the mobs demanded their fair share. 

Distracted as he is, he doesn’t miss the faint feather-brush in his mind, nor the way El’s reading suddenly smoothes out. “The turtles had everything turtles might need—”

“Hey,” he interrupts her, rousing himself. “Are you cheating again?”

“I’m reading,” she says, all wide-eyed innocence.

“Uh huh.” Steve turns the book away so the text is out of his vision, then says, “Now turn the page.”

She pouts, a little. “Reading is dumb. I can hear what things say if I listen.”

“You know as well as I do that it’s not polite to snoop.” 

“But no one else can tell when I snoop.” A moment’s thought. “Maybe Jim, sometimes.”

“No one else has to deal with you trying to con them every Sunday.” He reaches out, ruffles her hair. “Besides, what’re you going to do if there’s nobody around to read for you?”

She sighs, turns her eyes back to the page. “Didn’t see you last Sunday.” 

Steve shifts his weight a little, rearranging the books on the table as a pretext to look away. “My parents were home. I figured I should hang out with them before they left again.” He leaves out the part where “hang out” means “lie on his bed staring at the ceiling”.

El, to his relief, doesn’t call him on it. Just says, “Everyone was here. We had leftovers. Played D&D.”

Steve laughs a little, ignores the pang of guilt, of something deeper and more fundamental. Of isolation, no matter how voluntary. “I’m not smart enough for that game.”

El holds up the book. “I’m not smart enough for reading.”

“You’re plenty smart, you just have some catching up to do.” Steve gestures. “Keep going.”

El looks at him a moment, but turns her attention back to the page without argument, continues in her careful pronunciations. “‘They were, un-til Yer-tle, the king of them all…’”

They make it through the rest of the story, El occasionally spelling out words that she doesn’t know and Steve providing pronunciation and definitions. Once Yertle the Turtle has been reduced to King of the Mud, El sets the book aside. “Eggos now?”

Steve thinks he should at least make her read one more story, but honestly, he could use a snack. “All right.” Steve roots through his pack, grabs a familiar yellow box. “Let’s have Eggos.”

They sit on the couch and talk while they eat, although it’s different than the conversations Steve has with his parents, with people at school. Rather than the easy gabbing, filled with fluff about sports and weather, El’s conversation is…not halting, not anymore. But thoughtful, pointed. Like she has a limited store of words, and she’s parceling them out to greatest effect. Steve knows it’s not her vocabulary that’s the limitation any more; she probably knows more words than him. It’s more like she has so much going on in her mind that she has to think how to narrow it down, how to articulate it in a way the people around her can understand.

And she listens to him. Really listens, like she thinks he has something of value to say. It’s simultaneously a warm and a disconcerting feeling. Makes him wish he had something more to pass on than the local gossip.

“…and the big news in town is that Nicole’s mother disappeared the day after Thanksgiving. And her father didn’t call the police until last Sunday. Most people think she just ran off with Paul the poolboy—everyone’s sure they were sleeping together—but her friends say she went to live with her parents in Chicago because Nicole’s father was sleeping around on her, and I saw her sister almost get in a catfight at the grocery store with their neighbor over it.” Steve takes a sip of the orange juice he’s brought, eyes El, who’s munching her third Eggo. “If you don’t slow down you’ll eat the entire box I brought you.”

She gives him a smile that’s almost as sunny-bright as her sweater. “Special occasion.” 

Steve laughs a little. “Who am I kidding. If you do you’ll just guilt Hopper into bringing you more.” He leans back on the couch, stretching; the midafternoon light feels strangely somnolent in this sun-dappled room. Steve and the Party had gotten together and fixed the place under Hopper’s watchful eye last month, replaced the window panes and brought some new furniture; Joyce had even contributed curtains, a couple of which flutter next to the open windows. Sunlight pours in, buffered but not blocked by the bare trees. The new television, Steve’s contribution—an older model that sat ignored in his parents’ basement for years—stands in the corner, images flickering but sound off. 

Steve feels like he should be afraid, surrounded by woods on all sides as they are, but something about this place feels…safe. The woods here feel more like they did when he was a kid, harboring mystery but no real menace. Maybe it’s El’s presence—having seen her throw a demodog through a window with her mind, he’s not too concerned about anything lurking around the cabin. He stifles a yawn.

El looks at him with that gaze that seems to see more than it should. “Sleepy?”

Steve stretches his neck, sighs. “A little. Seems like I’m always sleepy, these days. But I can almost never sleep, except here.”

El’s smile grows playful. “Slept Friday night.”

Steve blinks, realizes she’s right. He _had_ slept…

“I can’t sleep. There’s too much.” Steve had been groggy, half out of his mind with…not terror, anymore, but exhaustion and adrenaline and emotion. “Too much going on.”

“Shush, princess.” Billy’s voice had been low as he deposited Steve on his bed. “I’ll watch out for you.”

Steve had laughed. Almost giggled, at the relief no longer having to keep himself upright, even with Billy’s help. At the strangeness of _Billy Hargrove_ , of all people, being the one to help him. “‘Princess’. Like Sleeping Beauty.” He’d kicked off his shoes before he flopped back onto his bed, groaning in pure satisfaction at how delicious it felt. 

Billy’s eyes had lingered on him, and Steve had felt suddenly warm. “Just think of me as your personal dragon.”

And he had. And he’d slept. And woken up Saturday morning, Billy gone, almost no sign of his presence. As if Steve had dreamed the whole thing. He’d half-thought that he had, except for the dirty clothes that were sitting on the floor next to the bed. 

Except for the bat, still lost somewhere in the woods.

Except for the memory of the way Billy’s eyes had felt, in the forest, inches from his. The heat they practically radiated as his fingers had combed through Steve’s hair...

El’s voice brings him back to the present. “You found another protector.” It’s not jealous or angry or accusing, merely certain. As if she’s stating the obvious.

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s…it’s not like that. Billy’s not a friend.”

“Protectors aren’t always friends.” El looks down, toys with the laces on her Keds. “Papa protected me.”

Steve doesn’t know much about El’s history, but between what he does know and her body language, the mention of Papa puts an ice cube in the pit of his stomach. Similar to how he feels when he thinks of Billy watching over him. His guts grow hollow, but his skin becomes warm, as if he’s becoming a heated shell, his essence all flash and surface. 

He doesn’t know what to say; usually in moments like these, he smiles and nods and lets the other person continue the conversation. But that doesn’t work with El; she merely waits. Finally he says, “I don’t think he’s as bad as your Papa.”

“Depends.” Her tone carries a sage certainty that would be ludicrous on any other thirteen-year-old. “He’s young. He can change.” Then, almost a little sad, “He has a Papa, too.”

“Pretty sure his dad doesn’t lock him up in a creepy-ass laboratory.” Steve suddenly finds a frayed thread on his sweater absolutely fascinating.

When he looks up, El is looking at him, with that gaze that seems to see right through him. “At least I could leave the laboratory.”

And Steve…really doesn’t know what to do with that, so he does what he does best, and pretends it wasn’t even said. “Oh. They’re building a new shopping mall. It’s supposed to open next summer.”

El’s eyebrows go up. “Shopping mall? Like on TV?”

“Yeah. Starfield Plaza, or something like that. It’s supposed to have like forty different stores to shop at. Well, stores and restaurants and a movie theater and hair salons.”

“Hair salons?”

“Yeah. Where you go to get your hair cut.”

She tilts her head, impish grin coming to the forefront again. “You need a haircut.”

“Like you have any room to talk, mop-top.” He reaches out and scruffles at her curls, somehow managing to make them even more chaotic. “I’ll have you know my hair is the height of fashion.”

“Height.” She giggles and reaches over to return the favor before she sits back, her eyes measuring the disheveled wave of his hair. “Makes you taller.”

“It sure as heck doesn’t make me smarter.” He smooths his hair back into place, the carefully-applied hairspray aiding the effort, only to yawn again. The swaying sunlight through the window is strangely soothing. “Is it okay if I have a nap?”

“Sure. I want to watch a show anyway.” El slides off the couch, lets Steve stretch out as she turns the volume up slightly on the TV, settles in front of him, almost a guarding posture. It’s barely five minutes before Steve passes out cold, the sound of wind through the branches whispering in his ear, mingling with studio laughter and exaggerated voices.

A heavy tread and a grumbling about paperwork and incompetent deputies brings Steve back to the waking world at dusk; he blinks his eyes open, sees the hulking form of the police chief filling the doorway as he knocks dirt off his boots.. Hopper hangs his hat on a hook by the door before he turns. “Evening, Steve. How’d the reading go?”

Steve rubs his eyes, tries to think through what feels like thick sludge. “Um. Pretty well. El read _Yertle the Turtle_ aloud to me.” 

Hopper shifts his gaze to El, still on the floor in front of the TV. Raises an eyebrow. “No cheating?”

She glances down a little. “Steve caught me.”

Hopper laughs. “That’s impressive. I still can’t tell half the time when she snoops on me.” He sits down to undo his boots. “How about you? How’s school?”

“Fine.” Steve ducks his head, suddenly aware of how much he sounds like a sullen teenager.

“Heard back from any colleges, yet?”

Steve feels his cheeks heat further. “I’ve got some applications at home.”

Once, Steve read the phrase ‘gimlet eye’ in a detective novel; when he looks up at the quiet, he’s pretty certain that’s what Hopper is giving him. “Have you sent any of them in?”

“Not yet.” He tries the charm, spreads a smooth easy smile across his face. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

Hopper grunts, but doesn’t press. “You staying for dinner?”

“Sure.” Steve does his best to make it sound like a casual thought, to hide his relief at the subject change, at the thought of not having to go back to his empty house quite yet.

“Great.” Hopper gets up, heads toward the bedroom. “Give me a sec to change and you can help me cook the stew.”

“Wait, ‘cook’?” Steve blinks in surprise at Hopper’s retreating back. “Whatever happened to Dinty Moore?”

“ _Somebody_ watched a TV program on nutrition. And has started insisting that we eat less sodium.” Hopper gives El a look from the bedroom doorway that’s probably meant to be fearsome. “So we get to make our own stew now.” He shuts the door, and El’s laughter bubbles against it.

Steve’s not precisely the world’s best cook, but then neither is Hopper—Steve almost wants to laugh at how his brow wrinkles as he cooks the stew meat, measuring out seasonings and boullion powder as if he’s a scientist working out chemical formulas. Steve focuses on slicing the carrots carefully, keeping his brain occupied as he figures out how best to approach the question that’s been preying on his mind. “Has there been anything weird happening lately?”

“Weird how? Ms. Jones keeps calling, says somebody’s been stealing the tomatoes off her porch plants. Though how she could be growing tomatoes in December is beyond me.” 

“No, I’m thinking more like…weird-weird.” _Like tunnels and demo-dogs weird_ , he thinks, but can’t quite bring himself to say. “Supernatural weird.”

Hopper glances over at El, who’s sitting at the table, peeling potatoes into a bowl. “I’m not the barometer for those kinds of goings-on around here. Why do you ask?”

“I just…I was in the woods the other night, and I saw a tree covered in spiderwebs, and I had…kind of a freak-out.” El’s watching him, now, and he shrugs, self-conscious. “I don’t know if it was anything worrying, or just…” _Just me going crazy_ , he wants to say, but his throat closes on the words once more.

“Spider-trees do happen, though usually after floods.” Hopper smoothes his mustache down thoughtfully as he stirs onions around in a pan, the stove seeming almost comically small next to his hulking presence. “Freak-outs are normal after traumatic experiences. Happens with war veterans all the time, especially when they see or hear something that reminds them of combat. I have a buddy from Vietnam who has flashbacks whenever he hears firecrackers. Fourth of July is rough for him.”

Steve nods slowly. “I guess that makes sense. I mean, El closed the gate.”

El brings the potatoes over for Steve to chop. “Spores,” she says.

Steve isn’t quite sure what she means, but Hopper pauses, turns to look at her. “Are you guessing or telling?”

“The-or-i-zing.” She says the word in careful syllables; Steve assumes it’s one that she learned recently, probably from Mike. “Some plants, when they die, leave husks. When you hit them, they make spores. Wind carries them off. Makes new plants.”

There’s a moment of silence as they absorb that possibility. Then Hopper says, “Now that’s a disturbing thought.”

Steve slices through the mealy crispness of a potato and mulls. “If that’s the case, then there’s no telling when we’ll be done with all of this. It could just keep going on and on.” He feels strange. There’s anxiety in his chest and ice in his stomach, but the thought of his going and finding his bat, of gripping it and swinging it to connect with something terrifying and monstrous, is…grounding. Reliable. Like an old pair of boots that he knows will fit his feet perfectly. 

But Hopper’s shaking his head. “No. I refuse to believe that. There’s got to be an end to it, somehow. You kids deserve a normal life.”

The grounded feeling disappears, and Steve laughs a little at the hollowness left in its place. “What is it about grown-ups always wanting kids to be normal? Are we all supposed to just take the same path you did?” He chops and chops, the pieces growing increasingly tiny under his knife. “What if we’re just not cut out for it? What if we’re _defective_?” 

“Hey, kid. Easy on the spuds, there.” Hopper places his hands gently over Steve’s, stilling them; Steve jerks, almost as if electrocuted, and steps away, the knife clattering onto its side. He takes a shaky breath, leans back against the sink, fights to get himself under control. Hopper merely takes the knife and cutting board without comment, and scrapes the carrots and potatoes into the pot.

“Sorry,” Steve says, after a moment. “Maybe I should go.”

“I think you should sit down at the table,” Hopper rumbles. “Stew’ll be ready in a bit.”

Steve obeys, trying hard not to feel like a scolded child. El slips into the chair next to him, pulling up her feet to rest on the edge of the seat; she takes his hand. “You’re here now,” is all she says, but it’s a rock to cling to in the maelstrom of his mind, and Steve squeezes her hand gratefully.

Eventually, Hopper sets down bowls in front of them, and sits. “Dig in,” he says without preamble, and they do. It’s only when the food hits his stomach that Steve realizes how hungry he was, that he missed breakfast and lunch had been a single Eggo and some orange juice. As he eats, the food becomes a solid and comforting warmth in his gut, and he starts to feel a little more present.

“So.” They’re nearly done with their stew, and Hopper’s eyeing Steve again. “What’s your plan for graduation?”

Steve focuses on scraping the last bits of stew out of his bowl. “Wear a dumb gown, walk across a dumb stage with my dumb classmates, get drunk at a dumb party afterward.” He shrugs. “It’s Hawkins, there aren’t that many options.”

Hopper gives an acknowledging sort of grunt. “And after?”

“Start working for my father, I guess.” He looks up, sees Hopper’s gaze, and decides to try honesty. “Have you seen my schoolwork? I’m not smart enough for college. So that’s really my only option, right?”

To Steve’s surprise, Hopper bobs his head from side to side, as if weighing his answer. “There’s different kinds of smart,” he finally says. “I mean, look at El. She’s still learning to read Dr. Seuss, but she’s throwing monsters through windows with her mind.”

Steve laughs. “I wish I could do that.”

She smiles a little at him from across the table. “No, you don’t.”

“The point is,” Hopper continues, “you’ve got options. If you want to go work for your father? Go work for your father. But if not, there’s trade school, or community college, or any number of career paths. Hell, lots of colleges aren’t so picky about their admission requirements, especially if you’re paying your own tuition. Your parents can certainly afford it.”

“Yeah. My parents.” Steve looks down at his bowl, twiddling the spoon in it. Imagines what his father would have to say about his only son attending _trade school_. It’s not hard to bring to mind the expression of barely-concealed disdain, given how recently it’s been aimed in his direction. That looming disappointment turned certainty that the scion of his family was not merely average, not just unmotivated, but outright _stupid_.

“Steve.” It’s El’s voice, this time. Steve looks up, meets her eyes, which are completely serious. “When I was in Chicago? I met different kinds of smart. And I met stupid.” She takes his hand again. “You’re not stupid.”

There’s a moment while that sinks in, until Hopper breaks the silence. “Sometime you’re going to have to tell us what happened in Chicago, kid.”

She smiles. A small, secret smile that somehow lightens Steve’s heart just as it lightens her expression. “Sometime.”


	8. in curls of smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Wednesday, and Billy has been simultaneously absent and somehow present in Steve’s life all week.

The school library has never been Steve’s favorite place to hide, even before it was saturated with memories of Nancy. Of how he’d loved his role, playing schoolboy devil to her good-girl angel; pretending to study so he could distract her, pull her back into the stacks for a stolen kiss or a quick feel. He’d even learned a bit during their sessions, when he wasn’t spending them studying the little crease between her eyebrows, memorizing the shape of her forehead, the way she rubbed at the back of her neck when she was working out a difficult math problem.

The library has never been Steve’s favorite place. But it’s quiet, and quiet is what Steve needs. He finds a table far in the back, leaning up against a wall; slumps down into it. Rests his head against the cool cement, not quite in a napping posture (Mr. Buckley, Steve has discovered, is dead set against students sleeping when they’re supposed to be studying, particularly _upperclassmen_ who are supposed to be _setting an example_ ), but close enough that he can maybe get a few minutes of shut-eye if nobody’s paying attention. There’s forty-five minutes of lunch period left, and the hard wooden chair feels deliciously comfortable beneath his tired frame. He sets his gaze into the middle distance and lets his mind wander.

It’s Wednesday, and Billy has been simultaneously absent and somehow present in Steve’s life all week.

Steve wonders how he manages the trick of it, of being just as obnoxious when gone as he is when he’s present and actively being an asshole. It’s not like he’s disappeared—Steve still sees him in the hallways, in Biology class, at basketball practice after school. That last especially had been bizarre; Billy had treated Steve like any other teammate...which is to say, with a combination of disdain and smug self-assurance. Different enough that Coach had even complimented them on putting aside their issues.

But the viciousness isn’t gone. Yesterday morning Billy had come to school sporting a shiner, and Eric Williams had a matching bruise on his cheekbone, though neither of them would say what the fight had been about. Steve’s avoided thinking too much about that. The feelings—surprise, frustration, even betrayal?—are simply too vague and confusing. Better to keep his head down, to pretend he can’t feel Billy’s eyes on him in the hallways, that he doesn’t regularly notice that prickling at the base of his spine, so very different than the comforting warmth in his chest that he’d had here in the library with Nancy… 

He must’ve dozed off between blinks, or perhaps those memories of Nancy are taking on physical presence, because suddenly she’s there in the chair next to him, bent over a book, just as he always pictures her. She turns to look at him, and gives that sweet little smile that he used to think was his alone. “Hey, Steve.”

“Hey.” A pang of warmth seeps into his chest, although it feels distant, like Steve’s watching it happen to a character in a movie. “Where’s Byers?”

“Photography lab. I thought I’d come talk to you alone.” She turns in her chair to face him. “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Steve hopes she isn’t going to bring up college applications again, although she had promised him help that so far hasn’t materialized. Largely because he’s been ignoring the whole prospect. 

“You know.” 

“Um…I don’t?” Could this be about her disappearing and leaving the kids with him? But she didn’t do anything wrong…and anyway, she looks far more uncomfortable than that.

Then it clicks. She left. With Byers.

She feels guilty.

 _Well, good,_ says a part of his mind that sounds an awful lot like Billy Hargrove. _She deserves to._

Steve doesn’t say anything further, only watches her through half-open eyes. That’s another thing Hargrove’s been teaching him. The value of observation. Of waiting for the right moment.

At his lack of response, her shoulders slump a little. “For cheating on you. Technically.” She glances over at his unchanging expression, sighs. “I think we both know we were over, even if we hadn’t said the words. But…it wasn’t kind of me. So I’m sorry.”

Steve stays quiet a moment longer, a little surprised at how good it feels to hold the upper hand in a conversation. But the lure of reconciliation—of acceptance—is too great, and eventually he answers. “You’re right. Thanks for the apology.”

Her smile returns, only a little clouded. “You’re welcome.” She shifts in her seat. “Did you want to come hang out on Friday? There’s a new movie at the Hawk, Jonathan was going to take me to it…” She trails off at his expression, has the grace to look abashed. “Nevermind. I’m sorry. I guess the last thing you want to do is be a third wheel.”

“Nance, it’s okay. I’m fine on my own.” Steve’s surprised at the gentleness of his tone; he doesn’t feel gentle toward her. Doesn’t feel much of anything. “It’s not like I’m alone. I’ve been hanging out with Billy lately.”

The shock on her face couldn’t have been bigger if he’d told her he was moving to Alaska, or applying to Harvard. “You’re doing _what_?”

And some small part of him can’t help but feel strangely satisfied at that. “Billy. You know. New kid. Ridiculous hair. Wears his jeans way too tight.”

Her eyes flick up to his own hair, but she closes her mouth, apparently having determined that to be an unproductive line of conversation. A moment’s thought, then she asks, “Didn’t he beat you up last month?” 

Steve shrugs. “I didn’t say he was a friend.”

She purses her lips, a habit that Steve always thought made her look like a sixteen year old maiden aunt. “You know, Dustin was asking after you, the other day. I bet he’d love to hang out.”

Steve laughs a little. A little condescendingly. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Dustin. But it’s nice to spend time with somebody who’s shaving, you know?”

“Steve.” She’s squinting at him now, with the same look she’d give him after reading one of his essays. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to the movies with us?”

A pause.

“You know, you don’t get to dictate who I hang out with anymore.”

Steve’s tone is still quiet, almost kind, and yet it’s like he’s stepped outside of himself for a moment, is watching himself say the words. “I already lost all my friends for you, remember?”

Nancy blinks. “I never asked you to—”

“Of course you didn’t,” he continues, tone still kind, conversational, almost patronizing. “I dumped them myself, because they were assholes and you weren’t. But you know what? There’s something nice about hanging out with assholes. They don’t expect anything from you.” He knows he should stop, should shut up before he burns this bridge beyond repair, but that prickle at the base of his spine has made its way into his brain. Like some part of Billy Hargrove has taken up residence in his mind, laughing and holding his lighter to the broken timbers and halfhearted patchwork. “Billy doesn’t give a shit about my career or my grades or even my keg stand record.”

Nancy, bless her, isn’t backing down. “Then what does he want? A flunky? A punching bag?” If they weren’t sitting where they are, if it weren’t engrained in her personality to be quiet in a library, Steve guesses she’d be raising her voice; as it is, her barely-over-a-whisper has taken on a piercing quality, and he suspects their private conversation has become rather less private. 

Steve merely shrugs. “So what if he does? I’m graduating in May. It’s not like any of it will matter.”

“Of course it matters!” She stops, take a breath, brings her voice back down to a whisper. “Steve, I know things are tough for you right now. But they’re tough because you care. You cared enough to save Jonathan and me. You cared enough to protect the kids. You’ve proven you’re better than that. Better than him!” 

“‘Better’. Sure. And what’s that got me?” Steve has to give a little laugh. “No friends. No social life. The only people who call me are my ex-girlfriend and a passel of middle-schoolers.” He drops his voice even lower. “Not to mention nightmares of demo-dogs every night. Maybe there’s something to be said for not giving a shit.”

“So you’re going to—what? Go back to being a bully?”

“It’s better than being someone’s reform project, wouldn’t you say?” 

Nancy sucks in a sharp breath. Slams her book shut, begins to put it back in her pack. “Fine. Throw it all away. See what happens. If you’re that determined to _prostitute yourself_ —”

She cuts off, then. Freezes, points of color burning high in her cheeks. Her breath comes in short, sharp bursts, lips pressed together.

Steve knows he should leave it there. He has the moral high ground. There’s no need to drop down to her level.

But then he sees the Billy in his mind, outlined in shadow against a twilit backdrop. Hears the rustle of vines moving in the dark. Watches those deft fingers flick the wheel of a Zippo suggestively. Sees, in the flicker of light that erupts, the demonic curve of his lips, tongue peeping out between them. Provocative. Obscene.

Steve leans back, feels a strange sort of frozen heat settle through his body, rendering each word solid crystal before he says it. Drops them in sequence, like clear ice cubes into a bucket. “I guess you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

And Billy drops the lighter, turns his back. Saunters off as the flames rear up, consuming everything they touch, his smile mirrored on Steve’s face.


	9. Or wallow in a drinkless world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Pretty boy._
> 
> The voice is so real, it’s like he can close his eyes and summon Billy Hargrove in the flesh. So he does—and Billy’s there with him, behind him, murmuring in his ear. His fingers slide up Steve’s neck, sink into his hair, tighten just enough to tip his head back. Bare his throat.
> 
> Steve’s breath catches.
> 
> He can almost feel the brush of fingertips along the inside of his thigh, the hot breath against his ear. A tingling sensation in his scalp travels all the way down his neck and spine as he hears that voice murmur quietly, There’s always a next time…
> 
> A rustle. Something in the woods. The panic rises, distant but still present.
> 
> Fingers tighten in Steve’s hair. 
> 
> _Sssshh._
> 
> Steve thinks, I lost my bat. I’m defenseless.
> 
> _I know,_ comes the reply. An arm slips around his torso—slithering like a vine. Supporting him, holding him. _My pretty pretty boy._

It wasn’t until after the Upside Down that Steve really understood why they called it _falling asleep_.

Nights haven’t been great, lately. He’s spent a lot of them lying here, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep that tiptoes in around the edges, only to flee in the wake of a wash of adrenaline as that falling sensation envelopes him, as his body gasps and fights to stay alert.

His sheets are too heavy. His mother, ever a slave to the calendar, put flannels on his bed during her brief visit home, and Steve’s bedroom is hot. Stifling. He kicks them off, lying cockeyed on the bed in his boxers, feeling the sweat evaporate from his skin in a way that leaves him chilled and yet somehow still no less feverishly warm.

Nights haven’t been great, but the vines are new. Shifting in the back of his mind, slithering around the edges of his vision. Waiting for him to let his guard down, to slide down his throat, fill his lungs with turgid air that bears the sweet-sour taste of rot, air that slowly suffocates as he labors to suck in another breath—

He sits up with sudden decision, turns on the light. The numbers on the alarm clock seem too small to be real; even in the pool of yellow light cast by his bedside lamp, the world feels illusive, blackness slinking back only reluctantly to the nooks and crannies of his perceptions. Still present, still threatening. 

He slides off of his bed, huddles on the floor, back pressed to the wall in the space between his bed and his nightstand. Takes a deep breath, another. Glances at the space towards the foot of his bed. He’s not hiding, not really. Just...regrouping.

Fuck it, he needs to be up for school in a few hours anyway, and further attempts at sleep are clearly not going to work. He reaches over, opens the nightstand drawer, grabs the half-empty pack of cigarettes and the lighter. 

The first drag is a boost to his system, the ember brightening his makeshift shelter, pushing the shadows from the corners of his vision. He coughs, a little, takes another drag, picks up an empty ice cream container from where it fell last night, half underneath his bed. Taps the ash out into it. 

The next hit of nicotine gently nudges him into full wakefulness, soothes the jagged edges of sleep deprivation and anxiety. The wall presses cool and soothing against his bare back.

Still, the vines remain. If he listens, he can hear them, rustling. Whispering. Waiting.

He finishes the cigarette. Takes another few deep breaths. He’s awake now, or he thinks he is. There’s almost certainly nothing coming around the foot of his bed. But at the same time, there’s no sense sitting here waiting to find out. He folds his limbs, stands, walks on wobbly legs, hears a spoon clatter into the depths beneath his bed. Pulls on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Wanders downstairs, turning on lights as he goes. 

He wishes he still had his bat.

It’s at the bottom of the stairs that he breaks his usual late-night routine. He pauses, then turns left, moves through the kitchen and onto the back porch. The pool is glowing softly in the dark, diffuse light casting the entire backyard in an eerie green haze, water steaming slightly where it comes in contact with the cooler air.

He hasn’t been any closer to the pool than this all year.

His fingers are wrapped around the neck of a bottle of whiskey. He doesn’t remember picking it up.

As if compelled, his bare feet carry him to the diving board, set low over the ethereal water. He sets the booze down, the cup with ice ( _where did that come from?_ ), and sits. Dangles his feet over the edge, lets them dip into the water.

The water feels just slightly warmer than the air. Body temperature. Caressing. Like it’s missed him.

He pours himself a couple of fingers of whiskey, reasons that there’s plenty of time before school for the alcohol to work its way out of his system. Curls his fingers around the tumbler. Tries to think of something outside this strange blankness that’s settled on him. Glances up, to the trees surrounding, dark. Familiar, but not. Unknown, perhaps unknowable.

The image of a many-petaled face overlays in his mind with a diagram of a Venus flytrap, and he shivers. Turns, mentally, toward something more mundane. A stack of college applications, sitting on his kitchen table, and what they represent. A career. A life. A future. Another darkness, far more knowable.

And somehow, far more terrifying.

He feels the vines in his head rustle. Catches one, just barely, sliding through the corner of his vision. Rather than shiver again, he sinks into the sensation of ice, creeping up around his spine, filling his chest. Better to stay cold. Frozen. Let the world move around him.

He takes a sip of the whiskey.

His mind, drifting amongst increasingly-choppy waters, casts about for another topic. Finds Billy Hargrove, clings to him like a piece of driftwood. 

_Nobody gives a shit about you. You’re wandering around this town like a ghost because you are._

Steve’s lost count of how many times those words have played back in his mind, since that morning. He feels increasingly ghostly, his pariah status no less awkward for it being self-imposed. He’d never realized how much he’d taken for granted the friendly nods in the hallways, the calls of his name, the occasional requests for favors or approval that came with status. Between his drop in popularity and his increasingly haggard appearance, he appears to be growing more and more intangible; as if, were he a little too caught up in his thoughts and not paying attention, he might drift right through a wall.

He looks down at the bottom of the pool and wonders, for a moment, if that’s what Barb’s life was like, before she disappeared.

Into the Upside-Down. Here, on this very diving board.

Nancy had whispered to him, one night when she awoke from a bad dream. Told him about El’s vision, so vivid that she had seen it too, had felt it imprint on her brain. Barb, or the thing that used to be Barb, at the bottom of Steve’s empty pool. Face bloated, rotting. Body decomposing, bound in vines, covered in indescribable growths.

Barb was well beyond caring what anyone else thought of her.

Maybe it was a relief.

It’s a morbid thought, the sort that might normally bring him close to a panic attack—but strangely, it holds no terror for him tonight. Even the thought of her trapped there, consumed by unnatural creatures, brings no real emotion—only a distant sadness, a wondering if that’s what fate holds in store for him as well. The vines are already in his mind…he laughs a little, aloud, and the clink of ice in the glass, the rustle of unnatural plant movement, underlies the sound.

His mind wanders to Billy again, and for the first time, he lets himself wonder what might’ve happened, that night Billy brought him home. His clothes, muddy and torn, had been lying on the ground next to the bed. Had Billy helped him undress? Had those long fingers brushed the skin of his belly, his shoulders? Had the other boy undone his belt, tugged his ruined jeans down from his hips?

Had his fingertips lingered against Steve’s skin? Had it been heated beneath Billy’s touch?

What had gone through his mind, as he sat there watching over Steve, that night?

He imagines Billy there with him, looking down into the shimmering depths of the pool. Imagines him sitting behind Steve on the diving board, one leg draped over each side. Would he be scared of the dark, of the woods? Even if he knew what they held?

_Not knowing is ignorance. Not caring is happiness._ He can hear Billy saying the words.

Billy says he’s not a psychopath. So what does he care about? Certainly not his family, not from what Steve’s seen. Not Hawkins, that’s for damn sure. His car, maybe. His hair. Steve wonders if he puts it in curlers to get that beachy wave. Laughs a little. There’s an image that warms his heart—big bad Billy Hargrove, hair full of curlers with a shower cap over it. Like someone’s grandma. No wonder he’s got it in for Max, if she guards a secret like that…

_Pretty boy._

The voice is so real, it’s like he can close his eyes and summon Billy Hargrove in the flesh. 

So he does.

Billy’s there with him, behind him, murmuring in his ear. His fingers slide up Steve’s neck, sink into his hair, tighten just enough to tip his head back. Bare his throat.

Steve’s breath catches.

He can almost feel the brush of fingertips along the inside of his thigh, the hot breath against his ear. A tingling sensation in his scalp travels all the way down his neck and spine as he hears that voice murmur quietly, _There’s always a next time…_

A rustle. Something in the woods. The panic rises, distant but still present.

Fingers tighten in Steve’s hair. 

_Sssshh._

Steve thinks, I lost my bat. I’m defenseless.

_I know_ , comes the reply. An arm slips around his torso—slithering like a vine. Supporting him, holding him. _My pretty pretty boy._

And even as he hears the vines, feels them slide further and deeper into the back of his mind, he calms in those arms. Feels the brand of a burning kiss pressed into the back of his neck. Leans back into the contact.

He’s so tired of fighting. Of the anxiety. Even in his mind, his voice sounds exhausted, resigned. _What do you want?_

A playful chuckle, in a register that vibrates deep in Steve’s gut. _What do_ you _want?_

_I don’t know._ Steve can feel his lips curve into a smile, a strange relief at the thought. _That’s the problem._

Billy’s arms are everywhere—around his waist, his shoulders, his chest. Fingers slip around his wrists, his neck. _Do you trust me?_

_I trust you to be an asshole._

That chuckle again. _Then trust yourself._

Without thought, or perhaps with a single shared intention, they slide off the diving board, bound together in desire and anticipation and a profound, deep certainty. Steve feels the body-warm water close over his head, but there’s no panic now, no resistance, only a sense of weightlessness as he drifts down. Down. His hair floats about him, freed from the confines of gravity and styling products; he barely feels the water around him, simply exists within it. Sinks further, deeper than he thought his pool went, until the world above is barely a passing thought. Billy is gone; there’s only Steve, and the vines that grow here in the depths of the pool, that have always been here, gently swaying in the current, caressing his skin.

Steve, who doesn’t know what he wants.

_Trust yourself._

The vines slip around his body in the same way Billy’s arms had, brushing against his skin with the gentlest movements, twining around his wrists, his torso, his ankles. Steve moves, testing his bonds. He should be terrified, but he isn’t. Instead, he’s…flushed. Heated. Feels the hitch in his breath, wonders how he’s breathing, this deep underwater. Wonders if his skin is heating the water, turning it to steam.

A low hum, deep in his mind, as if Billy is appreciating the sight.

_Tell me. What do I want?_

He feels Billy’s lips again, tracing heat along the edge of his ear. Feels fingers trailing along his skin. Sucks in a gasp as they dip down below his waist, brush against the bulge in his sweatpants. He writhes a little, but there’s nothing to gain purchase against, and those fingers only cup him, pull him backward, until there’s a similar bulge pressed against his ass.

_Do you want the same thing, pretty boy?_ The fingers tighten, and Steve whimpers. _What’s holding you back?_ They punctuate that last with a stroke, and Steve gasps, the heat beneath his skin multiplying a hundredfold. Those hands are everywhere again, and Steve’s clothes are gone, he’s weightless, at the mercy of the vines and the water and this thing in his head that isn’t Billy and yet is. His lips part, a cry escaping in a beautiful round bubble. 

He’s going to die here. The knowledge bubbles up within him much as the sensation does, with no particular urgency or panic attached to it, only a sense of inevitability. Sooner or later, he’ll die here at the bottom of this pool, and his body will decompose, and the vines will grow all the more thick and lush for it, and it’s okay. It’s more than okay—his breath catches—it’s beautiful. He’s part of it all. Life will go on, even when he doesn’t.

_You know how little it all matters,_ the voice continues as the intensity builds, as Steve’s breath begins to stutter. _So what’s stopping you?_

And just as he crests, he finds he’s rising with the bubbles. Floating, drawing inexorably closer to the surface no matter how much he wishes he could stay here, weightless and bound and free. The voice, the hands, the vines, the water are all fading. Steve’s eyes are opening. He’s in his bed.

His boxers are sticky, his sheets damp with sweat.

Out there, somewhere, is Billy. Waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a great debt to [Marti the Mouse](https://marti-the-mouse.tumblr.com), whose [beautifully moody fanart](https://marti-the-mouse.tumblr.com/post/182731644691/steve-harrington-for-those-of-you-who-likes-him) was a huge chunk of the inspiration for this scene.


	10. they're talking about you boy, but you're still the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve follows Billy’s gaze, realizes they’re surrounded by trees that’re moving—no, not the trees, but the bodies, chitinous and multilegged, scrambling along the trunks and twigs, crossing silken bridges between branches, weaving their webbing in and out and amongst the several trunks around them. The grove has become a perverse sort of bower, the cobwebs forming nearly into curtains, surrounding, enclosing. Twists of silk high in the canopy turn into bulbous swaddlings, forms far too large to be insects indistinguishable beneath their bindings. Strands spill out from the boughs, flying buttresses reaching out to other trees, both support and spread.
> 
> And Steve...feels almost like his mind has split. One part of him is going _no. No. Not again._ Says it’s time to go. Find his bat. Call Hopper and the others.
> 
> The other side turns to Billy. “You wanted to know about the weird shit that happens here.” He gives a grin every bit as feral and predatory as the California boy usually gives him. “Welcome to Hawkins.”

School that day is surreal. Nothing’s changed—of course nothing has changed, this is Hawkins, nothing ever changes—and yet everything has. Steve knows he’s the target of gossip, has been on and off for some months now. But today, the whispers and significant glances aren’t unwelcome; in fact, he relishes them. More than once, he catches a meaningful gaze directed his way, answers it with a smile that feels as if he has multiple sets of teeth. Revels in the feeling as the person glances away. 

It makes his chest feel strange. Not bad, but…expansive. Like there’s a laugh, there, waiting for just the right moment to come bubbling out.

He wonders if this is how Billy feels all the time. No wonder he’s so full of swagger. It’s heady, this…whatever it is. This change that’s come over him. This not-caring.

Billy himself is keeping a low profile, today. There’s no basketball practice on Fridays, and in Biology he slides into his seat at the last moment—though not without a half-smile and quirked eyebrow in Steve’s direction. But after class he disappears. 

It’d be puzzling, this transition from constant thorn in Steve’s side to near-ghost, if Steve still cared—but, liberatingly, he doesn’t. It’s only a matter of time before something happens between the two of them.

He finds he’s looking forward to it.

That afternoon, he decides he doesn’t want to stay at home, staring at homework that might as well be written in another language. He makes a few calls, makes use of what remains of his social standing along with the cash in his wallet.

By twilight, he’s behind the wheel; according to the badly-spelled flyers circulating around the school, Kristie’s hosting a holiday party tonight, of the sort where “holiday” is an excuse for “get trashed and make out while wearing an awful Christmas sweater”. The weed in his pocket should guarantee him entrance; he can light up, share with a mooch or two, harken back to the days when he was King Steve. Pretend that the people there give a shit about him. Maybe get a handjob in the bathroom from someone feeling particularly grateful. 

Steve feels _great_. Better than he has in weeks. Cracked, but mobile; the lost pieces, the rough edges, the way they occasionally grind together just don’t seem to matter the way they did a few days ago. It’s a nice change, so nice that when he approaches the turnoff to Kristie’s house, he hits the gas and keeps on going, out towards the quarry.

The full moon is lovely tonight. Far too nice to spend cooped up indoors. Better to keep the weed for himself anyway.

Unseasonably warm as it is, normally the quarry would be full of parked cars—kids getting drunk, couples making out under the full moon—but tonight it’s nearly empty.

Save for one lone blue Camaro, parked just up the ridge.

Steve feels that laugh bubbling up through the cracks in his awareness. Of course. What better time and place to have it out? It’s certainly dramatic enough—the moonlight washing over the rocks, the line of trees not far off, the sharp drop down into the lake. He kills the engine, shakes his head, and gets out of the car.

As he approaches, he sees Billy once again lying back on the windshield of the Camaro, looking up at the moon. “Hargrove.”

Billy only turns to look at him then, though he must’ve heard the car pull up, heard Steve get out. “Well, if it isn’t King Steve, come to play.” He’s clearly in a mood, sneering right up until his eyes widen in disbelief. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

Steve grins. “I was feeling festive. Thought I’d come spread a little holiday cheer.” He flicks at the jingle bell attached to the collar of one of the dancing deer. “Is it working?”

Billy’s expression is somewhere between sneering and genuinely horrified. “You didn’t have anything better to do? Kids to babysit? Fences to paint? Toenails to trim?” 

That laugh is still effervescent in Steve’s chest; he can hear it fizzing along the edges of his response, the dark rustle of vines lending it depth. “And miss our date night? I would never.” He lets his gaze linger on Billy’s jacket, his too-tight jeans. “I’d hate for you to have gotten all dressed up for nothing.”

Billy scoffs, blowing air between his lips. “When I dress up for you, pretty boy, you’ll know.” He turns his gaze back to the sky overhead. 

Steve considers, decides Billy’s not the only one who can refuse to take “no” for an answer. “You mean the leather-over-bare-chest look’s not for me? I’m crushed.” With a burst of manic energy, he plops himself onto the hood of the Camaro, lies down next to Billy. “What happened? Hot date stand you up?” 

“Yeah, your mom couldn’t get away.” Billy doesn’t precisely tell Steve to leave. “Why aren’t you out there getting drunk and hooking up with some bimbo at Kristie’s Kristmas Kegger?”

Steve opens his mouth to dissemble, make up some story, pretend that wasn’t his initial plan for the evening–but the truth rises to the surface, borne upon the strange carbonated liveliness that seems to be filling his chest. “Because it’s bullshit.” He shrugs, playing it cool. “High school parties are getting old. It’s the same beer and the same people and the same drama all the time. Besides, anyone who titles their party like a porn tape is trying too hard.” He turns his head against the windshield, takes in Billy’s lack of expression. “Why, how come you aren’t there?”

A shrug, so subtle Steve would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been watching for it. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“The same way you haven’t felt like talking to me all week?” Steve fills his tone with mock hurt. “Whatever happened to ‘there’s room at the top’?”

“I was told to keep away from you.” Billy’s tone is bitter enough to make Steve raise an eyebrow. “Apparently people are concerned that King Steve will be a bad influence.”

Steve outright laughs at that. “And since when do you care what ‘people’ think of you?”

“Since I realized they were right.”

“What, are you afraid I’m gonna pull you from the straight-and-narrow? Tempt you with long afternoons spent staring at the ceiling? Lure you into the seedy underbelly of babysitting nerds while they play D&D?” Steve scoffs. “My life is pathetic, Hargrove. You’ve got nothing to fear from me.”

Billy takes a moment to respond, but when he does, there’s a hint of his usual cockiness in the tone. “And you aren’t afraid _I’m_ going to corrupt _you_?”

“Billy Hargrove, bully and party animal? You’re nothing I haven’t done before.” Steve pairs the half-intentional double entendre with a dismissive tone, revels in the tingle of danger it sends along his spine, the way it increases the pressure of the laughter bubbling in his chest. “There just aren’t that many ways to get into trouble out here.”

“That would explain why I can’t have a moment alone to think without you showing up to sit on my dick.” The words are as dismissive as Steve’s, but there’s something else there, in the tone. Not an invitation, not quite, but maybe a challenge...

Steve smiles a little. “Well, then, since I’m supposed to be a bad influence—here.” He pulls the baggie of weed from his pocket, passes it over. 

Billy examines it, makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “This is your idea of trouble? You really are hard up for mischief.”

“I mean, if you’re too good to get high on crappy weed with me…” Steve moves onto his side, grabs at the bag.

Billy holds it out of his reach. “I didn’t say that, pretty boy. But I’m rolling.”

The high feels different, this time. There’s the pleasant buzzing around the edges, as if the geyser in his chest is bubbling harmlessly to the surface—still there, still steaming, but less urgent. But the usual lassitude and cotton-headedness are missing, replaced by an odd sense of clarity. Steve relaxes some, content to let his thoughts fizzle away into their surroundings. Billy seems similarly content, and for a minute they simply exist in the same space.

Finally, Billy speaks, his voice a little deeper, rougher than usual. “Damn. This is some good shit.” He passes the joint back to Steve. “Like, California good.”

Steve laughs a little. “I think my dealer must’ve gotten my order mixed up. This is way better than what I usually buy.” He takes a hit, holds it in for a few seconds, blows it out, a stream of smoke that hangs in the air for a moment before dissipating. At some point, they’d been going on in class recently about how space is constantly expanding, galaxies and stars constantly pulling away from each other, faster and faster. Steve wonders if there’ll come a point where everything breaks, or if it’ll all just dissolve, the way the smoke does into the air surrounding.

Billy’s thoughts seem to be running along similar lines, because a moment later his voice comes out of the darkness. “How do you think the world will end?”

Steve’s mental images meld, the darkness between galaxies becoming the darkness of tunnels, of vines and flower-faced monsters and blood—but they feel distant. Not unimportant, but manageable. “You’re a cheerful stoner.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

Steve pauses for a moment. _Overgrown. Smothered. Choked to death by otherworldly...things._ Somehow, even with the mollifying effects of the weed, the words can’t quite seem to make their way from his brain to his mouth. So he falls back to another image. “Sun turning into a red giant and swallowing up the Earth?”

Billy scoffs. “You’ve been watching too many bad movies, Harrington.” 

“Nah. They talked about it on _Nova_ when I was ten. Scared the crap out of me.” Steve realizes he’s still holding the joint, passes it back.

Billy relights it, takes a hit. Blows it out. “Did they leave out the part where everyone we know will be long dead by then?” 

Steve shrugs. “Still gave me nightmares. Why, what do you think it’ll be?”

Without hesitation, Billy answers. “Nuclear holocaust. But not from Russia, they’ve got just as much to lose as we do. It’s going to be some pissant little country that gets tired of everyone shitting on them, figures out how to put together a bomb, starts making demands. And then some asshole accidentally sits on the trigger. Boom.”

Steve makes a sound, dark and genuinely amused. “And you say _I’ve_ been watching too many movies.”

“Don’t need to watch movies. Just listen to the news.” Billy shrugs, takes the last hit off the joint. Blows it out. “No sense being upset about it. That’s the thing about the world. Nobody gets out alive.”

The words should send a chill down Steve’s spine, but he finds them strangely calming. After all, if everyone dies, why shouldn’t he, too? Suddenly he recalls a lecture at school about peer pressure— _if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?_ He laughs, soft.

“What’s so funny?”

Steve isn’t sure, really. But he finds words waiting for him, buoyed up from his subconscious. “Just thinking. You know something? I think I’m gonna say…no.” 

“No to what?”

“Dying. I’m just gonna refuse.” The words are coming faster now, bubbles rising from the depths of a pool. “Just ‘cause everyone else does it doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.” Steve swings his legs off the side of the car, comes around to Billy’s side. Feels the rightness of the action as Billy’s head turns to meet his, eyes half-lidded and intense. “And you’re going to refuse with me.”

“That’s an awfully big assumption you’re making, pretty boy.” There’s a dark heat in Billy’s gaze, drug-wide pupils promising unknown depths. “What if I want to die?”

“But you don’t.” Steve leans against the side of the car, gives Billy’s shoulder a little shove with one hand. “I’ve watched you. You already do it all the time.”

“Do what?”

“Tell death ‘no’. Every time you eat. Fight. Fuck. Even when you get out of bed in the morning, I bet. Everything you do, you give it a big ol’ middle finger.” Billy doesn’t answer, but Steve feels the half-push, half-tug. _Closer._ He climbs onto the hood of the car, leans against the windshield, places a hand on either side of Billy’s head. Meets his eyes again. “You’re one of the most alive people I know.”

A ghost of a smile haunts Billy’s face for a moment. “I didn’t think anyone had noticed.”

Steve laughs, takes his hand. “In this town? You stand out.” He leans back, tugs Billy off of the car, takes a couple steps back. Smiles when the other boy follows. “Like...there’s this reality everyone’s agreed on, and that’s what we call ‘normal’. And anything that happens outside that reality, we just ignore. We say ‘oh, how unfortunate’, like we care. And then we change the subject. Because all we really care about is staying in this little cage we’ve built for ourselves, and pretending nothing else exists. Especially nothing else that scares us.” He keeps walking, something pulling him towards the treeline, footing certain despite the way his eyes, his hand never leave Billy’s. “It’s like we’ve already planned out our lives, and nothing can possibly cause us to deviate from them. Which is as good as being dead already.” His feet seem to know the way, each stone and branch in their path as familiar and comforting as his own backyard. As his own bedroom. “But you...you notice things. You don’t let yourself ignore the weird shit, just because it doesn’t fit with your idea of what’s normal. You’re full of this amazing wild energy, where you go and do whatever it is you want and you _don’t stop_ , weird shit be damned.”

Billy’s expression is hard to read, but his body is loose, following where Steve leads. “Not all of us have the luxury of a normal life, pretty boy.”

“You’re telling me.” The trees are surrounding them now, leaning in as if to eavesdrop on their conversation, or to beckon them along. _This way._ Another step, then another. Then another. “Maybe it’s easier if you never had one to begin with. Feels less like a betrayal.” His feet come to a stop, the strange pull that had been leading them suddenly noticeable for its absence. “Because sooner or later something happens that’s so big, we just can’t ignore it.”

Billy’s eyes linger on Steve’s face a moment, almost puzzled beneath the glaze of the drug. Then they raise up over his head, take in their surroundings.

“Jesus, Harrington. You sure know how to make a point.”

Steve follows Billy’s gaze, realizes they’re surrounded by trees that’re moving—no, not the trees, but the bodies, chitinous and multilegged, scrambling along the trunks and twigs, crossing silken bridges between branches, weaving their webbing in and out and amongst the several trunks around them. The grove has become a perverse sort of bower, the cobwebs forming nearly into curtains, surrounding, enclosing. Twists of silk high in the canopy turn into bulbous swaddlings, forms far too large to be insects indistinguishable beneath their bindings. Strands spill out from the boughs, flying buttresses reaching out to other trees, both support and spread.

And Steve...feels almost like his mind has split. One part of him is going _no. No. Not again._ Says it’s time to go. Find his bat. Call Hopper and the others.

The other side turns to Billy. “You wanted to know about the weird shit that happens here.” He gives a grin every bit as feral and predatory as the California boy usually gives him. “Welcome to Hawkins.” 

Billy is standing stock-still, head canted upward, eyes so wide Steve can see the whites, nearly glowing in the web-filtered moonlight. “What the fuck am I even looking at?”

“Spider-trees aren’t uncommon, though they usually happen after floods.” Over the litany of _shit shit shit shit shit_ that’s playing in the back of his mind, Steve hears himself echo what Hopper had told him. Revels in the strange sense of security. Feels the spider-silk inside as well as out, wrapping around his uncertainties, muffling his mind’s concerns. Sheathing his anxiety in soft fibers, strong as steel. “It’s probably something to do with the weird weather.” 

Billy’s eyes are flicking this way, that. “Midnight meetings,” he mutters, taking in the whole of the strange embrasure they’ve found themselves in. “Nerve gas tests. Spider trees. This place is wrong.” His voice is getting louder; he tilts his head forward, shakes it as if clearing his mental Etch-a-Sketch. “This whole town is wrong. You’re wrong. I’m—” His voice halts, and his eyes meet Steve’s, wild energy within them. The expression of someone about to run. Or throw a punch. Or break a plate over someone’s head.

And Steve feels something in the conversation shift. Feels the balance change. Pitches his voice a little lower, takes Billy’s other hand, squeezes a little. “There it is.”

Billy’s voice is quieter, with a hint of a ragged edge. “I’m going crazy. I must be.”

Steve steps closer, tugging Billy towards him. “No. You’re _alive_ , Billy.” He smiles, broad. “Embrace it.”

“It’s wrong,” Billy says, as his body sways almost involuntarily towards Steve. “It’s unnatural—”

“Unnatural like spiderwebs? Like flytrap flowers?” _Like monsters with faces that open like fanged petals?_ With the nihilistic joy of a jig on a cliff’s edge, Steve reaches up, slides his fingers into Billy’s hair. Sees the bonfire stoked, fear and longing entwined deep in clear blue eyes. “Nature is weirder and more fucked up than anything we can conceive of. Should we pretend it doesn’t exist? Or—”

Whatever Steve was going to say next is gone, as Billy’s mouth finds his with a crash. It’s not a kiss, really, not like Steve’s experienced in the past. This is a battle, lips and teeth and tongue fighting for dominance as fingers scrabble for skin, as arms slide around torsos, as they both gasp for breath. Steve’s skin is suddenly heated, as if the fire in Billy’s eyes has spread to his chest, turning the geyser there into steam. He can hear Billy’s breath, heavy as Steve pulls him closer; Billy presses in, grinds his crotch against Steve, who can’t quite stifle a groan as he realizes how hard he’s become. Steve catches Billy’s lower lip in his teeth, digs his nails into the back of Billy’s neck, tilts his hips to increase the sensation, denim rubbing against denim in a motion both arousing and deliciously taboo—

Then hands are shoving him away, and Steve reels back a step or two, train of thought thoroughly derailed. Billy backs up until he’s outside the reach of the trees, eyes round and terrified. His lips move, but the words are lost in the rush of blood that’s filling Steve’s ears. Steve stares for a moment, stupidly, before shaking his head. “What?”

“I said, what the fuck is going on?” His face twists into a grimace as he picks his right foot up, gives it a shake. “Why is there webbing on my leg?” He looks back up at Steve. “What’s—why are you—no. Just, no.” His spine straightens in a hard jerk of movement. “I’m going home.”

Steve sucks in a breath, a diver breaking through the frozen surface. “Hargrove? What’s the matter?”

There’s a pause, and Billy’s expression is blank. Then he laughs, disbelieving, condescending. “You’re standing there surrounded by freaky-ass spider trees and you just—and you’re asking _me_ what’s the matter?” 

“Look, come back to my place.” Steve takes a step forward, the offer out before he even thinks it; clearly his brain isn’t doing the thinking, right now. “My parents are gone until January. We’ll be alone.” 

There’s a moment as Billy gets his breath back. The barest flicker of another expression crosses his face—temptation? Contempt?—before he takes a step back, mouth curled up in a smirk. “Is that what you tell all your girlfriends?”

Steve blinks, the mental whiplash requiring a moment to process. “I don’t—I just thought—”

“Thought I was your bitch, did you, Harrington?” It’s Billy’s turn to laugh, now, though there’s no joy in the sound. He shakes his head. “Well, you’re a decent kisser. No wonder the local cows love you.” 

“Fuck, Hargrove, what do you want from me?” Steve takes another step forward, follows to the edge of the trees and webs in pursuit of of that burning blue gaze. “You want to fight? You want to be friends? What the hell are you after?”

Billy contemplates him a moment, lips parted; Steve can see his tongue working against his canine. Then he bares his teeth, as much grimace as grin. “Maybe I want to make you _my_ bitch.”

And in his strange new place of clarity, Steve can see through the words. Can see the calculation behind them, the blatant power grab. Can see the arc of his fist as it lands on Billy’s face, a bruise to complement the only-half-healed black eye. The whole pattern of his and Billy’s orbit around each other is laid out before him, as if a kaleidoscope has tilted at precisely the right angle, rendering chaos into a readable pattern. Attraction and repulsion. Fear and wanting.

Deliberately, Steve takes one more step towards Billy, watches his posture tense, ready to fight, or flee. He raises his hand, sees the barest flinch—but only reaches up to tuck a curl behind Billy’s ear.

“You know where I live,” he says, quiet. 

Caught off guard, Billy’s expression is utterly readable—disbelief and hunger edged with raw naked terror—and it lights a coal of satisfaction deep in Steve’s gut. Then Billy’s face twists again, into something disfiguring. “You’re fucked, Harrington. You’re fucked, this town is fucked, everything here is just...get the fuck away from me.”

It’s only as Billy turns and stalks off through the trees that Steve catches a glimpse of the back of his jacket.

Of the spider-silk stuck to it, half-woven, raveled threads trailing forlornly behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends,
> 
> Just a quick update, or really a shamefaced admission—for a variety of boring real-life reasons, I'm significantly behind on the next chunk of this story. I'm absolutely continuing it, but it may be a week or three before I have anything to post. Want to come hang out/squee about these two/badger me about updates? I'm on [Tumblr](http://missroserose.tumblr.com) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/missroserose). 
> 
> Your engagement with this story has done wonders for my enthusiasm—I've seen more in the way of subscriptions and kudos and Tumblr asks and thoughtful comments than I dared hope when I started. Please keep them up! I hope I'll be back here soon. <3


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